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O'Brion Potatoes
Fry three cups potato cubes or balls in deep fat, drain on brown paper, and sprinkle with salt. Cook one slice onion in one and one-half tablespoons butter three minutes, remove onion, and add to butter three canned pimentoes cut in small pieces. When thoroughly heated add potatoes; stir until well mixed, turn into serving dish, and sprinkle with finely chopped parsley.
A straightforward fried potato dish from Fannie Farmer's book, notable for using the onion only as a flavoring for the butter rather than as an ingredient. A few details need translation.
- Fry temperatureThe recipe gives no temperature. "Deep fat" is usually read today as a moderate 350-375F; timing depends on how small the cubes are cut, which the recipe does not specify. For a crisper result, fry once at a lower heat until tender, rest, then finish hot until golden.
- Brown paperUse paper towels, or a wire rack set over a sheet pan; a rack keeps the undersides from steaming soft.
- The onion is discardedThe single slice is steeped in the butter for three minutes and lifted out. Do not let it brown or the butter will taste scorched; keep the heat low enough that it never sizzles hard.
- Canned pimentosStill sold, usually in small jars, and roasted red peppers from a jar are a close substitute. Three whole pimentos is roughly half a cup diced, depending on their size. Drain them well or the potatoes will go limp on contact.
- Order of operationsThe potatoes go in last and only long enough to coat. Anything more and the crust you just built in the fryer softens.
- QuantityThree cups of cubes is roughly a pound of raw potato, enough for about four as a side.
- Potato choiceA starchy russet gives the fluffiest interior; a waxy potato holds its cube shape better and stands up to the stirring at the end.
Potatoes O'Brien is an American restaurant dish of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, generally traced to Boston or New York hotel kitchens, though the specific O'Brien has never been identified and competing claims are all anecdotal. Fannie Farmer spells it "O'Brion." The version here is more restrained than the modern diner form: no green pepper, no bacon, and the onion contributes only its perfume to the butter. Canned pimentos were a comparatively new convenience when this book appeared, imported from Spain and then grown commercially in Georgia from the 1910s, and their appearance in a plain potato recipe shows how quickly the tinned pepper became an ordinary pantry item in American kitchens.