Home › Vegetables › Saratoga Potatoes
Saratoga Potatoes
Pare the potatoes, then cut in very thin slices into ice-cold water. Soak for fifteen minutes.
Take out only the number of pieces at a time that you are going to fry. Dry on a soft towel.
Fry in smoking hot fat; remove with a skimmer and drain on brown paper.
This is the original potato chip, fried to order in deep fat. The method is sound; only the vagueness about temperature and quantity needs filling in.
- Slice thickness"Very thin" means about 1/16 inch — thin enough to be translucent. A mandoline gives the consistency a knife rarely will, and uneven slices will burn at the edges before the centres crisp.
- Why the cold soakFifteen minutes in ice water rinses off surface starch, which otherwise makes the slices stick together and scorch. It also firms the slices so they hold their shape going into the fat.
- Dry them completelyThis is the hinge. Any water left on the slices will make the fat boil over violently and will steam the potato instead of crisping it. Blot between towels until they squeak.
- "Smoking hot fat"Roughly 375F, though the recipe gives no figure. Lard or beef drippings were common frying fats when this was written; a neutral oil with a high smoke point does the same job. Actual smoke means the fat is breaking down and should be replaced.
- Small batchesThe instruction to fry only what you have taken out is not fussiness — a large handful drops the fat temperature sharply and you get greasy, limp chips. Fry a single loose layer at a time, two to three minutes, until the bubbling slows and the colour is pale gold.
- DrainingBrown paper was the period's absorbent surface; a wire rack over a tray works better, as paper traps steam under the chips. Salt them the moment they come out of the fat.
- YieldThe original gives no quantity. Reckon on one medium potato, roughly 6 oz, per person as a side.
The name points to Saratoga Springs, New York, the fashionable summer resort where these paper-thin fried potatoes became a house speciality in the 1850s; the story crediting their invention to a cook at Moon's Lake House is traditional and much retold rather than documented. "Saratoga chips" was a common American term for them, in use before "potato chip" settled into general use, and the dish spread from resort dining rooms into ordinary cookbooks as a way of turning cheap potatoes into something that read as luxurious. That is the point of it: a few potatoes, a pan of fat and some patience produced a dish associated with expensive hotels.