The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [180]
Somehow I left Pieve Santo Stefano without the recipe. Years later Cesare arrived in New York. Late one Sunday afternoon we shopped for ingredients, returned to my house, and within minutes the smells and perfumes of Tuscany filled the kitchen. Only the nepitella was lacking, an herb indispensable in Tuscany, where it grows like a weed, but virtually unknown in this country, despite the plague of eating places calling themselves Tuscan. At Vipore, Cesare’s family makes a lunch of fried potatoes with a salad of green radicchio and sometimes a dish of eggs cooked with chopped fresh tomatoes. In Lucca, Cesare’s potatoes are called simply patate frite, but in America they become
Herbed Tuscan Fries
Cesare Casella
8 cups (approximately) peanut oil
1½ pounds medium-large all-purpose or boiling potatoes
4 garlic cloves, unpeeled and lightly crushed
4 sprigs of fresh rosemary (each 6 to 8 inches long), cut in half
10 sprigs of fresh thyme
4 branches of fresh sage
2 sprigs of fresh oregano
2 teaspoons sea salt
Black pepper in a pepper mill
Special equipment:
9- to 10-inch pan for frying, with sides at least 4 inches high Frying thermometer (one that covers the range between 200° F. and 400° F.)
Long cooking fork
Round skimmer about 5 inches in diameter
Fill the pan with 1¾ inches of peanut oil and place over the highest heat on your most powerful burner. (Owners of commercial stoves should reduce the heat by nearly half after the potatoes go in.) Immerse the thermometer in the oil. Wash and peel the potatoes and, with a French-fry cutter or a kitchen knife, cut them into long strips with a square cross section about ⅜ inch on a side. Do not wash the pieces but dry them carefully with a cloth and keep them tightly wrapped. Get the garlic and herbs ready.
When the oil reaches 360° F. to 370° F., add all the potatoes. Do not use a frying basket. Be careful not to splash the oil. The oil will bubble furiously and drop to between 240° F. and 270° F. before the temperature rises again. Stir continually with the long fork until the potatoes are done, in 10 to 12 minutes, adding the herbs and garlic as follows:
About 2½ minutes into the frying, stir in the garlic cloves.
Six minutes into the frying, the potatoes should begin to take on a golden color, and the temperature should reach 280° F. to 300° F. Stir in the rosemary sprigs.
A minute or so later, stir in the thyme, sage, and oregano.
Nine minutes into the frying, sprinkle with the salt. (Yes, right into the potatoes and oil.) The potatoes should now be a deep golden color, and the oil temperature should have climbed to about 320° F.
A minute later, fish out a piece of potato with tongs or chopsticks, blot it on a paper towel, wait a few seconds, and take a bite. It should be crisp, and instead of bending, it should be stiff. The insides should be creamy, with no hint of a raw taste. You are not likely to need more than another minute or two of frying before the potatoes attain this state. If the temperature reaches 360° F., lower the heat.
When the Tuscan fries are nearly ready, grind 6 to 8 turnings of the pepper mill over them in the oil and stir well. Using the skimmer, lift the potatoes from the oil (with the herbs and garlic—all of them delicious).
Place the potatoes, herbs, and garlic in a basket or deep dish lined with paper, blot the top, transfer to a paper-lined plate, and serve immediately (or keep warm in a 250° F. oven while you make another batch). Serves 2 Tuscans, 3 or 4 Americans.
Note: The oil can be used again to make additional batches of potatoes, but only within a few hours—salt breaks down frying oil. After the first frying, use only half the herbs and salt (but all the garlic), because the oil becomes imbued with their flavors. And make sure the oil remains 1¾ inches deep.
Cesare’s herbed potatoes are not classically French fries. They break