Cecil has covered Tater Tots (someone get the reference). I’m not too clear on the shape of various fried potatoes. What do you call them all in your part of the world? I think we can leave out potato chips, but describe anything one could actually make.
Shapes of fried potatos? Uh…well, there are steak fries, which are basically thick, wedge shaped pieces. Waffle fries look waffles. (duh)
To me it really doesn’t matter what the potato is called, I’ll probably like it anyway. Taters are yummy! 
I crave an art that passionately transcends the mundane instead of being a device for self-deception.–Griffin, from The Griffin and Sabine trilogy.
For you English folks, what’s the allowed shape for the chips of fish and chips?
They come in so many shapes and sizes, but if you’re talking REAL fish and chips, then the chips look like they were hand chunked out of potatoes, so they’re not too thick, not too thin, but irregularly shaped. Rectangular of course, but not even.
Then there are crinkle-cut which have that cute corrugated way about them.
That’s from my Down-Under experience, anyway.
-PIGEONMAN-
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Home fries, homeboy. These are taters cut into chunks, parboiled, then seasoned & fried. Louie’s in baton Rouge, LA, makes the best I’ve ever tasted!
If we’re talking deep fried taters, you got yer:
Steak fries – Thick cut, crunchy outside. Firm but slimy innards.
Crinkle cut – Ridges crisp easily, often causing the cok to pull 'em out of the oil to soon for a near raw interior. Cooked properly, they’ve got a baked potato consistency inside.
Regular – Same size as herr crinkle, but easier to cook properly.
Shoe string – Creme de la creme of fries. Properly cooked they are crunchy on the outside and the innards have actually pulled away from the outside.
Acceptable sides include: ketchup (Heinz), vinegar, and for a European flair, mayonaise.
Other than this, I’ve not given fries much thought…
I could have sworn Cecil covered tater tots…can’t find it.
Okay, it’s a baroque variation on cottage fries, but big chunked spuds (sliced endwise in eights or so), plonked in a baking dish and swabbed w/ oil and seasonings. They really are great. And yeah, they are “oven fries”.
Ah, but the greatest, the most sublime fried spud incarnation ever: latkes aka potatoe pancakes. Shredded good ol’ starchy spuds, mixed w/ a little flour, beaten egg, s&p and then fried.
I maintain strict neutrality on the sour cream/applesauce topping war.
Veb
Ahhhh… a thread from my own heart (not that I’m a canibal or anything).
Gotta say the potato pancake is close (esp. with apple sauce). Those Waffle or Crinkle cut are just too trendy. Steak fries are heaven if fried correctly. Had a variation of cottage fries just this morning. Baked, twice baked are hard to beat… but the all time best of all…
Home made French Fries… cut about 1/4 inch square by the length of the potato… deep fried in shortening. About 9 minutes at 375… take out of the shortening and let it get back up to 375 degrees then another minute or so to crisp them up… drain and season with salt and pepper.
Nothing better… I guarantee it.
My favorite thing to do with potatos: cut into thick discs, lay 'em on a cookie sheet. Spray 'em with spray butter, then apply garlic salt and parsley bits. Around 450 degrees, 10-12 minutes a side (flip and treat the other side halfway through). Then, enjoy your garlic potato chips. Mmmmm…
Ore-Ida cottage fries are to me what chocolate is to many of you. They aren’t easy to find, either. When I lived in Pittsburgh, I couldn’t get them anywhere, but they were available in Cleveland, where my parents lived, so every time I came down for a visit, my mom would ask if I wanted her to get anything, and I would always say, “Cottage fries.” So the first time I asked this, she pulled a bag out of the freezer and said, “I got them…but they call them ‘waffle fries’.” (My mom is always right, no matter how wrong she is.) Okay, I thought, no big deal, but the next time, I made a point of telling her, “Cottage fries are round, flat, and corrugated, not like waffle fries, which are crosshatched…like waffles. Cottage fries are what I want.” Again, she pulls out the waffle fries and the same explanation. Long story short, now that I live in LA, I have many sources for cottage fries. But it’s amazing to me that even after I told her, “If the package says, ‘cottage fries’, then they’re cottage fries. If the package says ‘waffle fries’, then they’re not cottage fries.”, she still said, “I got your cottage fries but they call them waffle fries.”
I’m really posting this in response to the “Mom is always right” thread. My mom has seldom been right, about large issues as well as small. My fur starts to crackle whenever I hear someone say anything along those lines.
Remember, I’m pulling for you; we’re all in this together.
—Red Green
sunbear,
our national dish used to be fish and chips. Now it’s curry. (I love them both!)
So:
Bombay Aloo (to the strength of the curry’s main dish)
Oh, you want info on chips…
OK, English chips are typically ‘extended rectangles’ - like a very thick plank. Every chip shop offers salt and vinegar, but I have a bottle of Heinz Tomato Ketchup permanently in my fridge. (not the SAME one, you fools!)
Some chip shops offer a Mars chocolate bar fried in batter. (no calories there, then)
I like your Hash Browns, but I love the Swiss way with potatoes … Rosti!
Why doesn’t the sun come out at night when the light would be more useful? (Pratchett)
Rilchiam: more detail on cottage fries than I expected!
Potato pancakes (aka latkes) are heavenly. Best recipe is to shred the potatoes in a food processor with some onion, mix with egg, flour (or matzoh meal), salt, and pepper, and fry them in a pan of oil until brown. Mmmmmn…
'Tis the season.
“East is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does.” – Marx
Read “Sundials” in the new issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction. www.sff.net/people/rothman
Hell, fry ‘em in chicken fat. Now THERE’S some eatin’.
Quote:
“I maintain strict neutrality on the sour cream/applesauce topping war.”
What war? Applesauce AND sour cream.
What we call spuds and what some of our local restaurants call them are two different things. We have two restaurants that insist that hash browns are just another name for french fries. One serves deep fried potato nuggets and the other serves dollar fries (round crinkle cut french fries ) and both call them hash browns. I dunno I feel that hash browns should be pan fried NOT deep fried, and what turns a fried potato into a hash brown is the addition of other stuff like onions and green peppers.
Keith
You want brilliance BEFORE I’ve had my coffee!!!