Stop Frying Potatoes in Oil! A Mexican Mother's Perfect Potato Trick You'll Wish You Knew Sooner

#potatoes #mexicanfood #crispypotatoes 📖 Page 158 of La Cocina de Bertha says a cooked potato is faster and better than a raw one, because it only needs the crisping. Sunday's caldo potatoes go in with the carrots on page 139: https://berthascookbook.com A half inch of brown oil going down the drain, and the potatoes beside it pale, limp and hard in the middle. It was never you, mija. It was the oil. The water inside the potato was always doing the cooking. The oil only painted the outside, and a napkin does that job. HONEST FIRST: in September I gave you the lid and two spoons of manteca, and that potato is still right. Tonight the two spoons become a napkin and the manteca becomes water. The air fryer works too; it is a small oven with a fan. My mother had a comal and a lid. ⭐ THE 7, COUNTING DOWN 7. THE POTATO: russet (dry, floury, crisps hardest) or yellow Yukon (creamy, holds its shape). Either one, but cut ONE size, thumb-sized, the whole bag the same. 6. RINSE AND DRY: cut potatoes bleed starch that turns to glue in the pan. Rinse until the water runs clear, then towel them until the surface is dull, not shiny. A wet surface cannot brown. 5. THE PAN: cast iron, comal or carbon steel, never nonstick (page 56). Wide, one layer with room between pieces, two batches if you must. Medium heat, two minutes empty first. 4. THE SALT: never at the start, it pulls water out onto the pan. Salt the second they come off, while hot and rough, then taste (page 153: potato drinks salt quietly). 3. HANDS OFF: a crust is a potato sitting still on hot metal. They stay where they land until they let go of the pan on their own. One flip. 2. THE SKIN: my mother scrubbed and left it on; my mother in law peeled every one. Ruling: russet skin on, yellow your choice. And the fat: on a chorizo night, the chorizo fat is the only fat (page 157, papas con chorizo). On any other night, number one. 1. WATER, NOT OIL: hot dry pan, potatoes in one layer. ¼ CUP OF WATER poured around them, it flashes to steam, LID ON, 8 minutes, do not lift it. Lid off, the last water boils away in a minute, the surface goes from wet to dull. Half a teaspoon of manteca or butter on a folded NAPKIN wiped across the pan, nothing pooling. Then PRESS each piece flat with the spatula until it cracks. 4 minutes untouched, flip, 4 more. Salt and taste. WHY: raw potato is starch and water, and the starch only becomes food when it gets hot and wet enough to swell, which is what steam under the lid does. A crust is a dry surface, a film of fat and hot metal, nothing more. The water does the cooking, the napkin does the color, the press does the crunch. THE WHOLE PAN: cut one size · rinse clear, dry dull · cast iron, medium, 2 min empty · one layer · ¼ cup water, lid, 8 min · lid off, surface dull · napkin of manteca · press flat · 4 min, flip, 4 min · salt and taste. 20 minutes, a dollar of potatoes, nothing down the drain. THE HONEST WORDS: • Pale and soft → lid off early, pan crowded, or pressed while still wet. • Stuck → pan not hot enough first, or flipped before they let go. • Burnt outside, raw inside → fire high, no lid. • Gummy → you skipped the rinse. • Tasted of nothing → salt was shy, or went on at the start and ran away. WHO PROFITS: the $4 bag of frozen fries (potatoes, oil and a factory) next to the $3 sack that makes ten pans. The $6 bottle you pour down the drain brown. The $100 air fryer, an oven the size of a bread box; the chef is right that it works, and he is selling you a hundred dollars to do what a $20 pan and a lid did for my mother. There is no money in a woman who knows a quarter cup of water cooks a potato. THE HABIT: Sunday caldo, four extra potatoes in with the carrots (page 139). Monday they go into the hot pan already cooked: no water, no lid, straight to the napkin and the press (page 158: the cooked potato only needs the crisping). And the pan afterward, with the potato glued to the iron because somebody flipped early? That is the other half of my life: 🧼 Clean The Mexican Way →    / @berthacleanhome   Nobody ever showed you the lid. Tell me in the comments: skin on or skin off, and which side of your table is losing? I read every one. CHAPTERS 0:00 The pan of brown oil 0:28 It was never you, it was the oil 0:52 Seven things, and the water is the trick 1:16 I'm Bertha: September's lid, the air fryer 2:07 7: Russet or yellow, one size 2:54 6: Rinse clear, dry dull 3:43 5: Cast iron, one layer, two minutes empty 4:27 4: Salt at the end 4:56 3: Hands off the pan, one flip 5:33 2: Skin on or off, and the chorizo fat 7:00 1: A QUARTER CUP OF WATER, the lid, the napkin, the press 8:26 Why steam cooks and contact crusts 9:10 The whole thing in order 9:48 The honest words 10:20 Who profits: frozen fries, the bottle, the air fryer 11:13 The habit: Sunday's caldo potatoes 11:48 What I would ask of you #mexicancooking #potatotrick #papas