Two Potato Dishes My Kids Ask For Again

Potatoes show up on most family tables in the same few forms: vinegar-tossed potato shreds, potato shreds with green pepper, beef stew with potatoes, pork braised with potatoes. They work. Nobody complains. Candied potato threads are a different matter. The sugar stage is fussy, and most home cooks skip it. So I will leave the usual lineup alone and share two potato dishes children tend to like.

One is a shredded-potato egg pancake for breakfast. It is quick, simple enough for a beginner, and soft enough for a child to eat without a fight. The other is a homemade potato fry for snack time. It takes more planning, but most of the work happens before frying: blanch, dry, freeze, then fry.

1. Shredded-potato egg pancake

This is a breakfast dish. It does not need yeast, a long rise, or a complicated sauce. One large potato, a little flour, and one egg per pancake will do it.

Peel one large potato and cut it into thin shreds. Put the shreds in a bowl of water and rinse them two or three times. The goal is to wash off excess starch. If too much starch stays on the shreds, they clump and the pancake turns gluey. Drain the shreds well and put them in a large bowl.

Add two small spoons of flour, salt, and a handful of chopped scallions. If you want a more savoury smell, add five-spice powder or thirteen-spice powder. I have tried thirteen-spice powder in this pancake, and it works well with potato. Stir with chopsticks until the shreds, flour, and seasonings form a loose, sticky mixture. Do not add too much flour. The flour holds the shreds together. It is not there to make a dough.

Set a frying pan over medium-low heat and add a little more oil than you would for a normal stir-fry. Use tongs to pick up a mound of the potato mixture about the size of an orange. Put it in the pan and tidy the edges with chopsticks so the shreds gather into a rough round. Make a small well in the centre with the chopsticks and crack one egg into it. The egg sits in the middle of the pancake. It looks good, and it makes the pancake more filling.

Keep the heat medium-low. Do not rush it. After about two minutes the bottom should be yellow and set. Use a spatula and chopsticks together to flip it. Cook the second side for about a minute and a half. Adjust by sight. The pancake is done when both sides are golden brown and the egg is set. If the heat is too high, the outside burns before the inside cooks.

Rinse the shreds and drain them well. Keep the flour light. Cook over medium-low heat. Make the well before adding the egg so the egg stays in place. For children, use less salt and go easy on the spice powder.

2. Homemade potato fries

These are for snack time, not an everyday food. Making them at home gives you control over the oil and the ingredients. An occasional batch is enough.

Choose a yellow-fleshed, crisp potato. A floury, mealy potato breaks apart and does not fry crisp. Cut the potato into strips a little thicker than a chopstick. Rinse the strips two or three times to remove surface starch.

Bring a pot of water to a boil and blanch the strips for two to three minutes, until they turn slightly translucent. Pull them out immediately and cool them thoroughly in cold water. This step keeps the strips firm and crisp-tender. Do not skip the cold-water bath.

Dry the strips with a clean towel or kitchen paper. Sprinkle a very thin layer of starch over them and toss to coat. Put them in the freezer for at least three hours. The water inside the strips freezes. When the frozen strips hit hot oil, that ice turns to steam and leaves small pockets inside. Those pockets make the fries crisper.

Heat oil to about 160–170°C, or what Chinese cooks call six-tenths hot. The strips are cold, so the oil temperature will drop when they go in. Starting a little hotter helps. Take the strips straight from the freezer. Do not thaw them. Lower them into the oil in small batches. Do not fill the pot too full, or the oil may boil over. Let them set for a moment, then nudge them gently so they cook evenly. They are already blanched, so they cook quickly: about three to four minutes. Lift them out with a slotted spoon.

Raise the oil temperature until it is just beginning to smoke at the surface. Return the fries to the oil for about thirty seconds, until golden and crisp. Drain them on a rack or kitchen paper. Serve with ketchup, pepper-salt, salad cream, or a Chinese-style dip such as fermented bean curd or yellow bean paste. Any dip your family already likes is fine.

Do not overcrowd the pot. Frozen strips will spit a little when they go in, so lower them gently. Fries are hot inside straight out of the oil. Let them sit for a minute before giving them to a child. Keep fried food occasional.

How the two dishes fit a week

The potato pancake is a weekday breakfast: one potato, a few minutes at the pan, and a child can eat it with a fork. The fries are a weekend project: blanch them early, freeze them, and fry them when someone is hungry. Neither dish needs a special occasion. The pancake needs a hot pan and a low flame. The fries need dry strips, a hot pot, and a quick second fry.