You've no doubt heard Danny Bhoy sending up the Irish and their love of potatoes before but it's always worth a listen. He's a Scot but has no problem sending up the Scots as well.
In previous posts I've lamented a source of good potatoes to make decent chips here in Toronto. Ditto for roast potatoes, mashed potatoes, baked potatoes and in fact any variation of this royal vegetable.
Canadians' idea of chips, or french fries is this:
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| Pouteen, the Canadians idea of chips |
Since coming here mid last year I've been on the hunt for Agria potatoes, those that I'm familiar with back in NZ and which are the most versatile and that can make the best chips and roast potatoes you can ever imagine. Don't just ask me, ask the renowned chef Heston Blumenthal who swears by them.
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| The magnificent agria potato |
So far in this country I haven't been able to track down Agria and have experimented with lots of other varieties that usually ended up with the mess in the top image. The best of a bad bunch was a USA potato named Yellow Flesh that gave chips looking like this:
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| Barely adequate |
Still unsatisfactory.
Last week I came across Russet potatoes:
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| Russet potato |
These looked more promising (or more correctly the marketing blurb on the outer packaging promised more) and I successfully made some OK roast potatoes, mashed potatoes and chips that looked like this"
They were OK but nowhere as good as I'm used to so there is definitely room for improvement.
1 comment:
The potato is a truly versatile vege. If I were you I'd head to a farmers market that are apparently very good in Canada. Any Mennonite communities near? They sell great veg in Canada, I'm told. Very picturesque barns, too.
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