Fried potatoes or fried mash?


Fried potatoes or fried mash?
In cooking there are a lot of dishes that appear to be extremely simple but which can actually prove to be very tricky. Amongst those that I'm aware of having this reputation are omelette and fried potatoes.
23 K 4.5/5 (20 reviews)
Grade this page:
Keywords for this post:CookingDishPotatoesGrilledRecipeDifficultyTrap
Last modified on: February 6th 2011
For this post: Comment Follow Ask me a question Send to a friend
Fried potatoes or fried mash?
Take fried potatoes; it's very simple because it's all there in the name of the dish: you take potatoes and you fry them, full stop. What's so difficult about that? Well, it's all a matter of how you do it. If you get it wrong, you end up with what my Uncle Pierre called “purée grillée” (fried purée).*

How can anyone get it wrong? Very easily! You only need to treat it like almost anything else you fry in a pan, and stir the potatoes regularly so that they fry on all sides. This is done with the best of intentions, but alas, if you do this as the potatoes brown and cook – and it's even worse if you have sliced them – they become fragile and break up into smaller and smaller pieces, and you soon have my uncle's famous fried purée.

The aforementioned Uncle Pierre is quite a character, a great self-taught cook who had his own restaurant for many years in the Auvergne. He is larger than life, a great bearded chap with a flamboyant mop of hair, very endearing and a god in the kitchen. Unfortunately, less gifted as a manager than as a cook. I have fond memories of my teenage holidays staying with him, and if I have one regret, it's that I was not as passionate about cooking back then when he was a chef; I'd have been nosing around in his kitchen the whole time…

Whenever Pierre was faced with a young cook looking for a job or training, he liked to ask, “So, what do you know how to do?” (It must be said that Uncle didn't set much score by diplomas and the like) and once the extensive litany of dishes had been reeled off, he would say, “Fine, go on then. Make me some fried potatoes”. Most of the time the youngster, laughing up his sleeve and taking the request as just the whim of an old has-been, would set to work and produce… a fried purée.

I can just imagine my uncle leaving the kitchen with a smile on his face as he went down to the cellar to fetch the appropriate bottle to toast the imminent catastrophe.

This is not just something my uncle did, but a sort of cook's challenge. I once heard Joël Robuchon on television saying that during his time as a chef he often judged discreet omelette or fried potato competitions between cooks.

So, how can you be sure of ending up with proper fried potatoes? Bah – it's actually quite easy: first cover the pan and don't touch it for at least 40 minutes. It's hard to resist, but that's the secret. The more you stir, the more the potatoes break up. Once they're nice and golden brown on the bottom, then – and only then – you can start to turn them over gently to cook on the other side.

This is what Uncle Pierre taught me, and I'll allow myself to add this as well: don't add salt straight away, as this tends to make them stick to the pan, which only makes things more difficult.

For more information and details, see the recipe for fried potatoes.

[Translator's note: fried mashed potato (and its variant “bubble and squeak”) is a fine old traditional British dish in its own right, but involves a rather different method. Jean-Hugues has been informed!]


Lasts posts
The grease spray
The grease spray
As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...
August 26th 20259495
Cake moulds
Cake moulds
When we make a cake, or a cake of the same rectangular shape, we usually take out our usual mould and tell ourselves that the recipe is anyway "for a cake", but is it really that simple?
August 25th 20253,8255
Thinning out herbs
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8th 20252,0325
Add a bay leaf
Add a bay leaf
Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31th 20252,1335
Parsley stems
Parsley stems
Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?
July 28th 20252,318 13

Other pages you may also like
The grease spray
The grease spray
As soon as you have something in a recipe that sticks to the mold, the question always arises as to how difficult it is to remove from the mold. There's nothing more frustrating than breaking your cake when unmolding it, because part of it has stuck in the mold. The classic way to avoid this is...
August 26th 20259495
A few tips for effective kneading at home
A few tips for effective kneading at home
When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.
June 23th 2021279 K 23.7
The art of the charlotte
The art of the charlotte
In cooking, a charlotte is a delicious moulded dessert, with biscuits around the outside that have been soaked in a flavoured syrup, filled with a light cream or mousse. The charlotte is left to set in the fridge before being turned out and served in slices. It is very light and a lovely sweet...
February 27th 201343 K4.3
The Holy Grail of French bakers
The Holy Grail of French bakers
While browsing through the recipes on this site, you may have noticed that while I adore cooking (everything, in fact, to do with eating and drinking), I am particularly drawn to bakery: bread, viennoiseries and all that goes with them – it’s a real passion of mine; I love making them and I...
March 24th 201818 K 34.7
The return of the "Norman hole"
The return of the "Norman hole"
You maybe know the "trou normand", this old gastronomic custom typically French which consists in taking a (small) glass of calvados, generally between the last course and the dessert? It's something that seems a bit anachronistic nowadays, having a glass of an alcohol of more than 60° in the...
December 18th 202112 K4.8
Post a comment or question
Posted by:
I am not a leaving thing

Follow this page
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
I am not a leaving thing
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.

Back to top of page