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Shredded Potatoes
Wash, pare, and cut potatoes in one-eighth inch slices. Cut slices in one-eighth inch strips. Soak one hour in cold water. Take from water, dry between towels, and fry in deep fat. Drain on brown paper and sprinkle with salt. Serve around fried or baked fish.
A plain shoestring potato, cut by hand. The whole recipe hinges on getting the strips genuinely dry before they meet the fat.
- Cut sizeAn eighth of an inch in both directions is a true shoestring — thinner than a modern fry, thicker than a chip. A mandoline with a julienne blade does the job faster than a knife, and even thickness matters more than exact size.
- The soakAn hour in cold water rinses off surface starch so the strips fry crisp and separate rather than clumping. Change the water once if it turns cloudy.
- Drying is the hingeWet potatoes drop the fat temperature and spit violently. Spread them in a single layer on towels and blot the tops as well; they should feel dry to the hand, not merely drained.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe gives no guidance on the heat of the fat. Use 360–375°F for these; at this thickness they colour in one to two minutes, so a single fry is enough. Fry in small batches so the temperature does not crash.
- Which potatoA starchy or all-purpose potato — russet or Idaho — crisps best. Waxy new potatoes stay dense and leathery at this cut.
- DrainingBrown paper was the standard blotter of the period. A wire rack set over a sheet pan is better, since paper traps steam under the potatoes and softens the undersides.
- Salt and timingSalt the moment they leave the fat, while the surface is still oily enough to hold it. They lose their crispness within a few minutes, so fry them last and take them straight to the table.
Shoestring potatoes belong to the same late-nineteenth-century enthusiasm for deep-fried potato that gave American cookbooks their Saratoga chips, French fried potatoes and potato puffs. Cheap frying fat, hotter and steadier ranges and a good supply of storage potatoes helped make fried potato a garnish rather than a treat, and the instruction to "serve around fried or baked fish" fits the era's plating convention, in which a platter of fish might arrive ringed with something crisp instead of accompanied by a separate side dish.