Pan-Fried Potatoes with Rosemary

Posted by Vivian in Potatoes

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Had some leftover potatoes and carrots in the fridge bought 2 weeks ago and I really want to clear the stock before everything turned bad. The initial idea was try to my hands on making a cottage pie but was worried at the same time that Holland potatoes may not be the best potatoes for mashing since it is higher in sugar than starch. So when I saw this recipe at The Little Teochew's blog, I immediately changed course.

A very simple dish but I went away with many lessons learnt:

(1) Have some good sense and never mix different types of potatoes together when cooking (I bought some loose USA potatoes because I wasn't sure if my leftover Holland potatoes was going to be enough to feed so many mounths and was glad that I did) because it becomes a challenge trying to manage the cooking time and making sure that the consistency was just right. The US potatoes turned out to be too soft by the time its cousin was done just right. I could tell who's who based on the colour!

(2) To reduce the cooking time, cover the pan with a slight opening for water vapour to escape and leave the potatoes to cook over medium heat. Turn the potatoes every few minutes to avoid charring. We need to brown it not char! The second batch was quite badly done because I walked away to tend to the children and in the end my 6-sided cubed potatoes all had 1 side that was almost burnt
(3) It is important to let the water vapour out if not the potatoes will start to "stew" in the water that had dripped back to the pan, making it hard to brown the potatoes and the potatoes will be slightly soggy as well.

(4) Never be too ambitious or lazy and attempt to cook too many potatoes in one go. The potatoes need to lay flat in one layer in order to get them all browning at the same rate.

But I must say that the rosemary leaves lended this dish a lovely smell. It is my first dealing with rosemary leaves as far as my own cooking is concerned and I have fallen madly in love with it. Time to go google for a rosemary chicken recipe.


Ingredients:

• Potatoes (cut into morsels)
• Rosemary leaves
• Olive oil
• Salt

Prepration:

• Heat pan and drizzle enough olive oil to cover the entire pan.
• Add in potatoes and rosemary leaves, making sure that all potatoes are in one layer.
• Cover pan, leaving a slight opening for water vapour to escape.
• Leave potatoes to cook over medium heat and giving them a flip every few minutes, until potatoes are soft enough to cut through easily
• Remove and sprinkle lightly with salt.
• Serve as a side-dish.

Number of Servings: Dependent on number of spud-monsters being served.

The Holland potatoes have a sweeter taste to it and holds up better in shape. Because of its natural sweetness salt can be omitted. Starchy potatoes require less cooking time and can do with some salt before serving.