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Fried Whole Potatoes
Peel and boil in salted water, remove from the fire as soon as done so that they may remain whole; have ready one beaten egg, and some rolled crackers or bread-crumbs; first roll the potatoes in the egg, and then in the crackers, and fry in butter till a light brown, or drop in boiling lard. This is a nice way to cook old potatoes.
A straightforward crumbed-and-fried potato that depends almost entirely on the boiling stage. The recipe assumes you know when to stop.
- The hinge: undercook the boilThe hinge is the boil: "remove from the fire as soon as done" means lifting them out while a skewer still meets slight resistance at the centre, not when the potato slumps. A fully soft potato will break apart the moment you roll it in egg. Smallish, even-sized potatoes are easiest to keep whole; drain them and let the surface steam dry before coating.
- "Old potatoes"Late-winter storage potatoes, floury and often sprouting, drier and duller in flavour than new ones. A modern equivalent is any older russet or Maris Piper past its best. Waxy new potatoes hold together better but the dish was not aimed at them.
- Rolled crackersPlain unsalted soda crackers or water biscuits crushed fine with a rolling pin, not the sweetened or heavily salted crackers now sold. Panko gives a coarser but perfectly good crust; dried breadcrumbs are closer to the original texture.
- One egg is not enoughA single beaten egg will coat perhaps four or five potatoes before it runs out. Beat two, loosened with a tablespoon of water or milk, and season the crumbs, since the recipe seasons nothing after the boiling water.
- Butter versus lardButter alone can brown and burn before the crust sets; clarified butter, or half butter and half neutral oil over medium heat, is safer. For the "boiling lard" option, deep fat at 350-375F for two to three minutes gives a crisper result and is less prone to knocking the coating off.
- Turning themRound objects in a shallow pan want constant attention. Two spoons or a spider work better than tongs, which crack the crust. If the coating loosens as you turn, the potatoes were boiled too long.
- YieldRoughly 2 lb of potatoes serves four as a side dish. They are best straight from the pan; the crust softens within ten minutes of resting.
Frying boiled potatoes in a crumb coating was a standard American thrift technique for late-season stores, and the closing line gives the whole purpose away: this is what you did in March with potatoes that had lost their sweetness and firmness. The Dixie Cook Book, one of the many regional adaptations of the widely reprinted Buckeye-style community cookbooks of the late nineteenth century, is full of these small rescues, methods aimed less at the height of the season than at the end of it. The egg-and-crumb coating is the same treatment applied to croquettes and cutlets throughout the book, and it supplies a browned exterior.