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Ringed Potatoes
Peel large potatoes, cut them round and round in shavings, as you pare an apple. Fry with clean, sweet lard in a frying-pan till brown, stirring so as to brown all alike, drain on a sieve, sprinkle fine salt over them, and serve.
A nineteenth-century version of the potato crisp, cut in one long ribbon rather than discs. The whole success of it is in how thin you pare and how dry the shavings are before they hit the fat.
- The cut"Round and round in shavings, as you pare an apple" means a continuous spiral peeled from a large potato with a sharp knife or a swivel peeler. Aim for shavings no thicker than a coin; anything thicker browns on the outside while staying soft and leathery within.
- Dry them firstRinse the shavings to wash off surface starch, then dry them thoroughly in a towel. Wet potato in hot lard spits violently and steams rather than crisps.
- Lard and fat temperature"Clean, sweet lard" simply means fresh, unrancid lard; it is still sold, and it fries beautifully at around 350-365F. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point works the same way. Without a thermometer, a shaving dropped in should bubble briskly at once, not sink quietly.
- Frying in a pan, not a fryerThe original assumes a shallow skillet of fat, so the shavings must be turned and stirred to brown evenly, as the recipe says. Fry in small batches; crowding drops the fat temperature and the potatoes go greasy.
- TimingThin shavings take two to four minutes. The recipe says to fry till brown; take them out at gold, as they darken for a few seconds after leaving the fat.
- Draining and saltingA sieve is fine, but a rack over a tray keeps them crisper than paper, which traps steam. Salt while still glistening so it sticks; fine salt, as specified, clings better than coarse.
- YieldTwo large potatoes make roughly a bowlful. They are at their best within the hour and do not reheat well.
Fried potato shavings appear in American and British cookbooks through the second half of the nineteenth century under names like ribbon, shaving or Saratoga potatoes, the last generally traced to the resort kitchens of Saratoga Springs, New York. What separates this version from the familiar chip is the cut: a paring knife was ordinary equipment in a home kitchen, and a cook who could take the peel off an apple in one unbroken curl could do the same to a potato without any special equipment. The Dixie Cook Book placed such things among the plain vegetables rather than treating them as a novelty, and lard was a usual frying medium in a Southern kitchen where hogs were butchered at home and the rendered fat kept through the year.