The best ways to beautifully cut potatoes for different dishes and recipes

Publication in the group: Processing and preparation of products

When cooked correctly, fried potatoes come out golden brown on the outside and soft and tender in the middle of each bite. To fry the potatoes, you need to cut them thinly. More often this is done in the form of straws.

This grinding helps get rid of excess starch in the tubers, and allows you to achieve a golden hue and crispy crust. However, other cutting methods are also popular - into slices, cubes, slices. In some cases, potatoes are not even peeled, but simply washed thoroughly.

The secret to cutting potatoes into the right shape for frying

There are several ways to cut potatoes for frying. More often it is necessary to pre-clean the tubers. Any knife is suitable for manual slicing, but experts recommend carbon steel products with a wide, thin blade. Initially, you will need to get used to this design, but in the future its use will not cause any difficulties.

Peculiarities:

1. After peeling, place the potatoes in cold water to prevent them from oxidizing and turning brown.
2. After this, the vegetable should be dried and chopped.
3. To ensure the stability of the tuber on the work surface, it is recommended to cut off its edge with a slice, thereby creating a flat side.
4. Then you need to place the potato cut side down and start chopping.

The easiest way to cut potatoes for frying is to use a special serrated knife. Such instruments are available for sale in a wide range: both in size and price category. Some of them can be purchased for home use for very little money.

Why are potatoes cut into cubes or strips for frying?

Cutting potatoes into strips for frying is easy. Sometimes the tubers are cut into thicker pieces, resulting in oblong bars. This shape of the pieces allows for uniform absorption of oil and heating of the potatoes during frying in a frying pan or deep fryer. Due to their small thickness and large contact surface, the straws or sticks absorb heat from the hot oil and cook very quickly.

As a rule, when cutting potatoes manually, 2 methods are used:

• When chopping into strips, the tubers are peeled, washed and dried. After this, the potatoes are cut into plates, which are then divided into thin long strips, the thickness of which often does not exceed 5-7 mm.
• When cutting into cubes, it is not necessary to peel the skin of root vegetables, especially if it is thin and soft. It is enough to wash the potatoes very well (using a brush or sponge if necessary) and dry them, cut out the eyes or damaged parts with the tip of a knife. Each tuber is then cut into thick slabs and cut into long rectangular bars up to 2 cm thick (lengthwise).

How to cut potatoes into strips for frying - a simple method using a knife.
In addition to corrugated knives, which allow you to obtain beautiful shaped cubes, there are several devices on sale that can be used to quickly chop the tubers into strips of the same thickness and size, without exerting much effort.
Potatoes are often cut with vegetable peelers and slicers to obtain very thin slices that cannot be made with a simple knife.

Cabbage solyanka with meat and sausages

A wonderful and simple recipe for making solyanka with meat and cabbage. And the addition of sausages makes the dish especially flavorful. The recipe uses sausages, but similarly, you can use any type of sausage.

• • 400 grams of meat;
• • 400 grams of sausages;
• • spices to your taste.

1. Wash, remove films and cut the meat into cubes. You can use it in cubes, like for goulash. Fry with added oil. It is better to do this immediately in a cauldron. If you are using beef, you can cover the cauldron and simmer the meat a little to make it softer.

2. Chop the onion and carrots, add them to the fried meat and cook further together.

3. Shred the cabbage and send it after the vegetables, also lightly fry. Once it has reduced in volume, you can add chopped tomatoes. It is advisable to remove the skin from them.

4. Next, pour a little boiling water into the cauldron. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes.

5. At this time, peel the sausages and cut into circles. If you use sausage, you can cut it into any other shape.

6. Open, add salt, spices and chopped sausages. We simmer for another 5 minutes. But we are guided by our cabbage. There are hard varieties, mostly winter ones. And there are juicy and soft ones, mostly summer varieties. This cabbage cooks very quickly.

7. At the end, stir the hodgepodge well, throw in the herbs, bay leaf and turn it off.

Which potatoes are suitable for frying in strips?

The secret to perfectly cooked fried potatoes is choosing the right variety. Although all root vegetables appear similar, roasting requires the use of high-starch varieties. The best choice would be red-brown varieties, as they are characterized by high density and lower water content. Some golden potatoes are also suitable for frying because they are so versatile.

You should avoid "waxy" potatoes - for example, varieties with pink skin or very young root vegetables. Their high moisture and sugar content makes them unsuitable for frying (the result is almost always soft and soggy, with no crispy surface).

According to the recommendations of experts, raw potatoes should be stored at a temperature of 7-8 ° C, protected from light sources. If you place a vegetable in a cooler place, the starch in its flesh will begin to convert to sugar, and when cooked, the product will caramelize rather than brown. At room temperature, the tubers may begin to wither or sprout, which also does not have the best effect on the taste of the vegetable.

How to choose the right beets

Beet tubers should not be very large, elongated with thin skin and a short tail (root).
The longer the root, the farther the water was from the vegetable, and this is not a very good indicator of its cultivation. If possible, buy beets with leftover green leaves (in other words, tops). They will prevent beet juice from leaking out when cooking a vegetable and they can also be actively used for preparing, for example, pesto, soups and salads . The skin of the tuber should be smooth, dry, without soft or dark spots.

Young beets

Preparing potatoes for slicing

You can cut potatoes into strips for frying very quickly, but before doing this you need to prepare them. First of all, this includes washing the vegetables thoroughly. If necessary, use a brush or sponge to remove any accumulated dirt or sand particles, especially around small eyes. The tubers are then placed in a sink and completely filled with water. Some cooks recommend leaving them soaked for several hours.

This allows you to wash out the starch from the pulp, and thereby make the potatoes dense and less likely to stick to the pan. After this, the potatoes are cut into strips, placed in a sieve or colander and washed with running water until the draining liquid becomes clear. Sometimes, instead of rinsing, the slices are covered with a layer of clean water and left for several hours.

To prevent potato straws from darkening, it is recommended to pour it with a weak solution of vinegar or lemon juice (1 tbsp per 4 liters of water). This acid concentration will stop the chemical reaction without affecting the taste of the product.

Before frying, you need to dry the potato slices to remove excess water. A dehydrating rack or a thick layer of paper napkins are great for this.

Technology to help

Every housewife is familiar with the situation when, as they say, guests are already on the doorstep, and there is very little time left for cooking. For example, I would like to surprise them with thin fried potato strips, but I have absolutely no time to deal with careful slicing. What should you do in such a situation? How to quickly cut potatoes into strips? For such a case, there should always be special household appliances in the house. Today, purchasing it in a store is not difficult. You will need a regular vegetable shredder with an attachment for cutting into strips. With its help, in a matter of minutes you can turn any amount of potatoes into a mountain of thin, even pieces.

Tools, cutting instructions

You can cut potatoes into strips for frying using different tools. There is no single correct way to grind it, but there are some recommendations that can help you get a better and tastier product. Good knife skills are critical to cutting food well. This is a skill that is required at almost every stage of cooking, even the simplest ones.

In addition, you will need a high-quality cutting board. There are many variations on sale made from a variety of materials. However, experts do not recommend plastic and glass boards, despite the fact that products made from these materials are popular.

A cutting board made of high-quality wood is the most reliable and safe. When using it, you must ensure that it is securely fastened in place. Its displacement may cause the knife to slip and cause injury. To provide additional stability to the cutting board, you can place a damp paper towel underneath it.

Ordinary knife

Regardless of the product you are grinding, safety in the kitchen should come first. Therefore, it is important to use high-quality chef knives that are lightweight and have a smooth, sharp blade. To hold the knife correctly, you need to grasp the handle with your index finger and thumb. If you grab it with the rest of your hand, the tool will be held tightly in your hand (which is important for cutting hard products from which the blade can come off).

Potatoes are often cut with special grooved knives to give the slices an attractive shape. This tool can be replaced with a regular bread knife with a serrated blade. Cutting potato strips for frying can be done by hand quite quickly.

However, it is more difficult to achieve slices of the same shape and thickness. If you have insufficient knife skill, you will likely end up with uneven cuts and, as a result, uneven straws. But with practical experience, you can quickly achieve almost perfect results.

Cutting potatoes with an ordinary knife is done as follows:

1. First you need to cut a slice of potato to get a flat surface.
2. It is necessary to place the tuber on the cut so that it becomes stable and easy to handle (this will make the rest of the cutting process easier).
3. Then you should cut the potatoes into longitudinal, even slices. The thickness of the future straw depends on their thickness. 7 mm is one of the most popular values ​​used in cafes and restaurants, but the blanks can be made thicker or thinner, depending on personal preferences. In this case, the plates must be the same height, otherwise further uniform cutting will become impossible.

4. Next, you need to stack the potato plates evenly on top of each other, using the edges as a guide, and cut them lengthwise into strips, adhering to the thickness chosen in the previous step. For example, if the height of the plates is 7 mm, the width of each slice should be similar.
5. Cut potatoes should be placed in cold water until ready to fry to avoid oxidation and browning.

Vegetable cutter

This tool is sometimes used in conjunction with a knife because it produces a more even straw. Using a vegetable cutter, the root vegetable is cut into plates of equal thickness, which are then chopped by hand.

Its use helps to significantly reduce the number of inhomogeneous slices, since transverse cuts are made by the same mechanism, with unchanged parameters. Even if cutting the plates by hand with a knife is not uniform, the slices will be the same in one of the dimensions.

Grinding potatoes with a vegetable cutter looks like this:

1. You need to wash the potatoes, peel them if necessary, and place the tuber on the vegetable cutter blade.

2. It should fit very tightly, not slip or wobble.
3. Some vegetable cutters have settings that allow you to adjust the thickness and shape of the product cut. If such options are available, install the appropriate blade and adjust the desired blade size. If a simple tool is used (without available variations), it is necessary to chop the potato into uniform longitudinal plates.
4. After this, you need to fold the cut tuber, align the edges and cut it with a knife into long thin longitudinal slices.

It is recommended to pre-wet some models of vegetable peelers with a few drops of water. This will help the potatoes slide more easily along the blade. You must be careful when using this tool because the cutting mechanism is very sharp and you can accidentally cut yourself on it.

Grater

If you need to chop a small amount of potatoes for frying, you can use a large grater for this. However, it should be borne in mind that it is impossible to obtain long beautiful slices in this way. A Korean carrot grater can provide a more attractive result, but in this case, the potato straws will be very thin and fragile.

Slicer

A special slicer or slicer will help you cut the potatoes for frying into uniform strips. This tool resembles a vegetable peeler, but its mechanism is supplemented with transverse choppers. As a result, the root crop is cut into completely identical pieces.

To use the slicer, you need to adjust the required width of the slices and the distance between the teeth, and push the peeled potatoes through the mechanism. The optimal setting for further frying is 7 by 7 mm. Most slicers come with blades of different sizes that allow you to cut into pieces of varying thicknesses and shapes.

After preparing potato slices, you should rinse the tool with water and dry it to ensure long-lasting performance and protect it from rust.

Rules and options for frying potatoes cut into strips

Potatoes cut into strips before frying are usually soaked in water. This helps remove excess starch and make the slices crispy. After draining the water, dry the chopped potatoes thoroughly. Otherwise, residual liquid may react with the hot oil and cause it to splash.

Potatoes can be pre-peeled or left unpeeled before frying (sometimes the skins add special flavor and texture to the dish). There are many options available for the oil you can use to fry it. It is necessary to choose varieties with a neutral taste and a high smoke point. Some suitable options are sunflower, canola or safflower oil.

Frying in a pan

This is the most common method of frying potato strips.

It's very simple:

1. In a thick-bottomed frying pan, heat the oil (a thin or moderate layer) until it sizzles.

2. Then you need to put the potatoes in it in one layer and fry until light golden brown, turning the slices over with a spatula if necessary.
3. The finished potatoes should be salted and seasoned to taste, placed on a layer of paper napkins to remove oil, and served hot or warm.

Deep frying

This method produces the famous French fries. To achieve the best result, the slices are fried in boiling oil in 2 stages, adjusting its temperature. This allows you to achieve a crispy surface of potato slices with a soft and tender center.

The preparation process is carried out as follows:

1. You need to fill the fryer with oil and turn on high heat, after about 5 minutes. it will boil.
2. When its temperature reaches 150–160°C, you need to put in potato straws and set the timer for 15 minutes.
3. After the allotted time has passed, stir the potatoes and fry for another 10 minutes.
4. In this case, you need to make sure that the oil has cooled down a little compared to the original value (it should not be hotter than 138°C).

5. When the potato slices become golden and crispy, remove them, shake off excess oil, add salt and serve immediately.

Roasting in the oven

If you don’t want to fry potato strips in boiling oil, you can cook them in the oven.

This allows you to get a healthier and lower calorie dish:

1. Preheat the oven to 220°C, cover a large baking sheet with foil and sprinkle oil over the entire surface.
2. Dried potato slices should be mixed with 0.25 tbsp. vegetable oil, sprinkle evenly with 2 tsp. salt and 0.5 tsp. coarsely ground pepper and place on prepared baking sheet.
3. Then you need to place the seasoned potatoes in the oven and cook for 25-30 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the strips are golden brown.

Flavor Variations

If you wish, you can add all kinds of seasonings to the fried potatoes, and even create your own recipe for the dish.

It is advisable to serve fried potatoes immediately, as they may soften a little as they cool. It is recommended to heat it in the oven.

Cabbage solyanka with sausages

Ingredients:

• 300 g white cabbage,
• 4 sausages,
• 1 onion,
• 1 carrot,
• 1 pickled cucumber,
• 2 tablespoons tomato sauce or ketchup,
• 2 bay leaves,
• salt and ground black pepper to taste,
• vegetable oil,
• 150 ml water,
• greenery.

Preparation:

Heat vegetable oil in a frying pan. Add finely chopped onion and coarsely grated carrots. Fry for 5-6 minutes. Then add coarsely grated cucumber and tomato sauce. Stir and cook for a couple more minutes. Add chopped sausages and shredded cabbage. Pour in water, add bay leaf, salt and pepper, cover the pan with a lid and simmer for about 30 minutes until the cabbage is soft. Sprinkle the finished dish with chopped herbs and serve.

Alternative cutting options, their pros and cons for frying potatoes

In addition to strips and cubes, potatoes can be cut in different ways for frying. You can often find it being chopped into cubes, slices and circles. Pieces of these shapes are fried in a frying pan and in a deep fryer, and also cooked in the oven and air fryer.

Cubes

The process of cutting cubes is almost the same as chopping into cubes - you should cut the tuber into plates, then into strips. After this, all the workpieces need to be crushed into small identical cubes.

If the potato cubes are small (up to 1.3 cm), they can be quickly fried in any way and will have a delicious crispy crust. However, large cuts (about 2.5 cm in size) are only recommended for cooking in the deep fryer or oven.

In circles

Cutting potatoes into thin slices is a good alternative to the usual straws. You need to rinse each potato (with or without skin, as desired) under cold water and pat dry, place on a cutting board and cut into round slices up to 1.3 cm thick.

Potato slices can be fried in a frying pan or deep-fried - they almost always turn out golden brown on the outside and soft in the middle.

In slices

If desired, you can cut the potato halves at an angle to create wedge-shaped slices (up to 1.3 cm thick). Unlike straws, they are usually not the same size, but this does not prevent them from frying.

If the slices turn out to be too large and long, it is recommended to cut them in half.

Choosing the right knife

How to choose the right knife
If you start chopping a large head of cabbage with a small, dull knife, the job will not be limited to five minutes. It is not necessary to buy too expensive knives, the main thing is that your knives should always be sharp. It is advisable to purchase them with a sharp tip and a special protrusion at the end of the handle - the “heel”.

Types of kitchen knives

And, of course, you need more than one knife for everything; at a minimum, the kitchen should have:

• chef knife - for preparing various dishes, blade length up to 30 cm;
• universal knife - for cutting fruits, vegetables, cheese, meat, sausage and herbs, blade length up to 15 cm;
• bread knife - blade length up to 23 cm;
• cleaning knife - blade length up to 10 cm.

In general, the optimal knife for slicing everything is approximately 12-13 centimeters in length. It should taper towards the tip and have a straight blade.