How can I brown them without making them mushy? I love good fried potatoes, any recipes would be awesome to try!!!
It takes me about 45 minutes to get a nice batch of home fried potato chunks.
Don't overcrowd the pan and don't play with them constantly.
It is worth the wait!
I could eat them at every meal and I look like I do!
I have always had best results using leftover peeled baked potatoes or steamed potatoes. Use a cast iron frying pan. Get the oil hot first, fry in small batches.
This is how I do it, although I always used baked potatoes that have been completely cooled in the fridge overnight/all day. Hot leaf lard in a screaming hot cast iron skillet. We have only 4 of us here, so one skillet is enough potatoes for all of us and I don't have to do more than one batch usually. We like onions and mushrooms in ours and I wait until the last 5 minutes or so before I add those, otherwise they become crispy bits of char.
In the wintertime, when we are heating with our wood-burning stove, I really love to bake the potatoes that way for home fries the next morning. The wood gives the potatoes a great flavor without them tasting smoky.
I hear duck fat works very will to make good fried potatos, I have not tried duck fat, but I have it on good authority that it works very well. I cook mine in olive oil and butter that has been heated very hot. Hot oil will brown and not soak into the potatos, if the oil is not hot, the potatos soak it up and they turn mushy. Also make sure to dry your potatos before cooking, pat them between paper towels to remove any water or juice from the potato, and don't crowd them. Fry in small batches. Hope this helps.
I remember my mom opening a can of boiled potatoes, dumping them in a skillet,
using the open can to roughly chop them, and having these delicious crispy fried
taters with some onions!
Piece of cake, I thought, years later when I started cooking.. nooo problemo!
Yeah, right. Took me forever to figure out that I needed more oil, dry potatoes,
and most importantly... to leave the things alone while they did what they did.
Fried potatoes are a patience food!