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Tater Tots

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Jay M.

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Tater Tots

by Jay M. » Mon Jun 09, 2014 10:15 pm

There's another thread on tater tots being served at local restaurants. I have always wanted to try a homemade version. Online recipes call for baking potatoes, scooping out the stuff, mixing in other stuff, rolling into balls and baking/frying for the finish. It seems to me that these would be dense and not the consistency of the Ore-Ida Tater Tot I have in mind.

So, I have ideas and am soliciting opinions on the following recipe idea/technique:

1) Shred peeled potatoes (long, thin strands) and squeeze out as much water as possible,

2) Mix potatoes with maybe onion, garlic, parsley, S&P and some flour and a binding agent (egg?)

3) Lay out the mix in a bead on a sheet of plastic wrap or wax paper and roll into a long strand to the diameter of a classic tater tot.

4) Unwrap the formed strand and bake for a period to set everything.

5) Cut the strand into tot-sized pieces and fry them until crisp.

The egg binder thing is troubling - is it needed? Don't want to end up with scrambled eggs, but with a light touch would this work??
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Carla G

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Re: Tater Tots

by Carla G » Tue Jun 10, 2014 9:06 am

http://www.jsonline.com/features/food/h ... tml?ipad=y

Try this link. Kinda' similar to your idea but bakes the potatoes first and doesn't use egg. (He had the same questions about using a binding agent as you did.) I think (think but don't KNOW ) that adding a beaten egg would make it more dense and heavier. Maybe, if you really want to use egg, just a beaten egg white, beaten stiff and folded in.
Oh oh! This is starting to sound like one of my culinary experiments. Usually something explodes, burns, or smells really bad at the end . So...beware! :wink:
"She did not so much cook as assassinate food." - Storm Jameson
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Re: Tater Tots

by Jay M. » Thu Jun 12, 2014 10:05 pm

Carla G wrote:Try this link.


Excellent, Carla! Thanks. Stubbornly, I might try it my way, too, and risk a culinary experiment ending badly. I've had my share......
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Re: Tater Tots

by Jay M. » Sun Jun 22, 2014 10:55 pm

OK, so I tried this pretty much as I described and was generally pleased with the result. I used flour but no "binding agent". First attempt was with no baking - just dropping the formed raw tater tots in 350-degree oil on recommendation from my "sous chef". It was a disaster. Everything fell apart and we ended up with fried, shredded potatoes that tasted pretty good.

Here are the uncooked shredded, dewatered, S&P'ed, with onion and parsley potatoes formed into tot-diameter rolls.
precooked_tots.jpg
precooked_tots.jpg (59 KiB) Viewed 3600 times

Next, I baked the "logs" for about thirty minutes, which set them well enough that they stayed together, so I could cut them into tot-length pieces for the deep fry. The results, while not perfectly shaped like the Ore-Ida version, were pretty good.
x_ore-ida_tots.jpg
x_ore-ida_tots.jpg (31.32 KiB) Viewed 3600 times

I probably wouldn't do this again, opting instead for the store-bought version to satisfy the tot fix. Looking forward to trying Chef Tavis' version at the NABC/Louvino pop-up.

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