The joys of home fries and wine
Two characters from "The Achewood Cookbook" offer recipes and their opinions about fine food and drink. Bon appetit!
Editor's note: The following is an excerpt from "The Achewood Cookbook." To read an interview with the author, cartoonist Chris Onstad, click here.
By Chris Onstad
Read more: Comics, Recipes, Life, Eat and Drink, Food and Travel
April 10, 2007 | A Meditation on Home Fries
Thoughts & recipe by Roast Beef
I think all of us are kind of on a life-long quest for a breakfast restaurant where the home fries ain't completely horrible. You know what I'm talkin' about. I know cooks at breakfast restaurants ain't usually too well trained but dang I have seen some messed-up home fries in my day.
Major Problems of Restaurant Home Fries
1. There is no commonly agreed upon definition of "home fries"
2. There is no agreed upon size for "home fry" cubes
3. Some people apparently think home fries need to be extremely gray and soft
4. No one seems to agree what should be thrown in with home fries (i.e. onion, bell pepper, garlic, etc.) or how they should be spiced
5. I have even seen home fries where the potatoes were somehow chewy. Once you make a potato chewy you are doing things so wrong that you would be better off just not touching the potato at all, and instead giving it to the customer so that he could take it home and try to make sense of it himself.
The Right Kind of Potato
Red potatoes (which are a "waxy" type of potato) can be cubed and throw directly into the pan. Russet potatoes ("starchy") need to be soaked and rinsed a few times before they can be fried, otherwise all their starch gums up the process. I prefer the ready-to-go potato for morning cookery.
The Right Cut
The home fry potato should be cut into uniform cubes about the size of computer keyboard keys. This makes them big enough to get a crispy surface while just turning creamy soft on the inside. It also makes them easier to pick up with a fork and stick some eggs with. Much smaller and they'd be trouble to a fork.
The Right Cooking Method
The best thing you can do to a cooking home fry is leave it alone. Constantly flipping them all around just keeps them from getting that nice golden brown crust. Trusting yourself enough to leave frying food alone is a major milestone on the way to learning how to pan fry. Only undisturbed food can form a great golden crust.
Put a nonstick frying pan over medium-high heat and add enough oil to just coat the entire bottom. When a drop of water thrown into the oil sizzles, throw in your potatoes to make one even layer. Don't stack -- use multiple pans if you need more potatoes. Toss a few times in the oil and then just leave be. In a few minutes of sizzlin' you should see some brown creepin' up the bottom edges of the potato cubes -- that's how you know when to flip them. Let them fry several more minutes after flipping so that multiple sides get that nice golden brown. Taste a cube every now and then to see when they're creamy inside. When they are, you're done. Slide them onto your plate and sprinkle lightly with salt.
The Right Seasoning
If you salted the potatoes a few times during frying and then once more lightly at the end when they were removed from the pan, you don't need a bunch of crazy seasonings. The potatoes themselves have a beautiful flavor and don't need a bunch of miserable onion powder or celery salt. Don't get bogus with your potatoes. I have seen a lot of breakfast restaurants try to make up for all of their other shortcomings (lousy tea, filthy bathroom with a safe in it, waiters with dreadlocks) by putting like ten spices on the home fries.
DANG
Usually home fries cook the slowest of any item in your breakfast meal. Eggs, bacon, ham, pancakes -- these all cook faster. So cook off your home fries first and put them in a bowl in a low-heat oven. Put foil over 'em if they're gonna be in there more than a few minutes. This will keep them from drying out.
There you have it, perfect home fries every time for pennies on the restaurant dollar.
Oh yeah:
Ingredients for One Serving
1 baseball-sized red potato
Oil (olive oil preferred, vegetable oil OK)
Salt