Recipe

July 31, 2017

Crushed And Fried Potatoes With Crispy Herbs And Garlic

Recipe: Joshua McFadden with Martha Holmberg

Try this recipe for Crushed And Fried Potatoes With Crispy Herbs And Garlic from the cookbook Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables.

cookbookJacques Pépin made this dish popular, but you know it was developed by some frugal cook centuries ago, who simply wanted to use leftover potatoes and ended up creating a sublime experience of crisp and creamy potatoness.

Ingredients

  • 1½ pounds small medium-starch potatoes, such as Yukon Gold
  • Extra-virgin olive oil, for frying
  • 2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
  • 1 tbsp fresh rosemary leaves
  • 1 tsp thyme leaves
  • Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper
  • 1/4 tsp dried chile flakes
  • 4 lemon wedges

Directions

Yield: Serves 4

  1. Heat the oven to 400°F.
  2. Spread the potatoes on a baking sheet and bake until fully tender when poked with a knife, about 30 minutes, depending on how big they are.
  3. Let the potatoes cool enough that you can handle them, then crush each one with your palm or the back of a pan. You want to create a patty shape, with lots of craggy surface area to crisp up in the hot oil. If you have larger potatoes, tear them up into smaller pieces after smashing.
  4. Heat ½ inch of olive oil in a large skillet until quite hot. Put a corner of a potato into the oil to test the heat; if it sizzles nicely, the oil is ready. Working in batches, fry the potatoes until nicely browned on one side. Flip and cook until both sides are browned, about 5 minutes total, but about 30 seconds before the potatoes are done, toss in some of the garlic, rosemary, and thyme. Transfer the potatoes to paper towels to drain. Continue frying the potatoes, scraping out the bits of garlic and herbs between batches so it doesn’t burn.
  5. Season with salt and black pepper and the chile flakes. Serve with a lemon wedge for each diner.
Photographer:

Laura Dart & A.J. Meeker

Source:

Excerpted from Six Seasons: A New Way With Vegetables by Joshua McFadden (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2017. Photographs by Laura Dart and A.J. Meeker. Used with the permission of the publisher.