My potatoes have separation anxiety

September 28, 2018 11:43 AM

If I'm roasting or pan-frying chunks of potato, when I go to turn them, the crispy browned bit on the bottom (the bit that's the whole point of roasting or frying potatoes!!) often sticks to the pan, and the rest of the potato chunk comes away without it. This happens in pyrex, aluminum, or cast iron, and it happens regardless of how generous I am with the oil. I can scrape the crispy stuff back up with a spatula, but I'd rather it stayed attached to the potato to begin with. What's the secret here?
posted by nebulawindphone to Food & Drink (29 answers total)

The only thing I've found that works is more frequent turning.
posted by hapax_legomenon at 11:46 AM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

two tricks that may help:

- start with a hot pan. preheat the pan on the rack when you preheat the oven, then add oil and let it warm up before you add your potatoes.

- parboil your potatoes before you begin.

more good advice available here!
posted by halation at 11:48 AM on September 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

Non-stick is named that for a reason.

Unless you have a reason not to use them I'd definitely give non-stick/teflon roasting pans, cookie sheets, frying pans etc a try. Roasted/fried potatoes turn easily for me with oil and a non-stick pan in good condition. Also, if you don't want to do that, un-cut baby potatoes never stick even in regular pans when oiled and are extra delicious as a bonus.
posted by randomnity at 11:49 AM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

The secret is the kind of potatoes you're using. What kind of potatoes are you using?

Cast iron is fine. Your grandmother did not roast or pan fry potatoes with Teflon.
posted by DarlingBri at 11:52 AM on September 28, 2018 [7 favorites]

If you're roasting them, leave the skins on and start them cooking cut side up. Don't turn them until the cut sides start to brown. Once they do, you can stir to your heart's content and they won't stick.
posted by mudpuppie at 11:53 AM on September 28, 2018 [8 favorites]

I think your frying pan might be too hot.

If the oil between the pan and chunk of potato starts to burn, it will act like a carbonized glue.
posted by jamjam at 11:54 AM on September 28, 2018 [6 favorites]

Use waxy potatoes, not mealy ones for baking like Russets. Parboil them first, but only cook them halfway -- if you cook them too much before pan frying even waxy potatoes will fall apart and not stay with their tasty brown bits. Cook on medium heat at the most. Lower heat + patience = nice pan fry potatoes :)
posted by ananci at 11:56 AM on September 28, 2018 [9 favorites]

This is a tried and tested way to have the crispiest potatoes
posted by special-k at 12:00 PM on September 28, 2018 [11 favorites]

I used to have this problem, and the most effective remedy I found was to parboil or even just rinse the potatoes after cutting them. In my case I'm guessing the extra starch that got released in cutting was what was burning and sticking to the pan, so a quick rinse to remove that was enough to fix it. I cook almost exclusively in cast iron, for what it's worth.
posted by egregious theorem at 12:01 PM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

The type of oil matters too. I do best on medium-high heat, microwave the potatoes to par cook, and a refined coconut oil.
posted by SaltySalticid at 12:21 PM on September 28, 2018

My cousin swears by putting the roasting pan and oil in the oven to get hot and then pulling it out and popping on the parboiled potatoes then. Her pots are amazing!
posted by catspajammies at 12:31 PM on September 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

I can confirm that special-k's linked recipe is the best roasted-potato method, but it's also much more time and labor intensive than I typically have.

What are you using to scrape them up, and how jam-packed is your pan or baking sheet? I often can solve this problem by using a thinner spatula and/or leaving more space between the potatoes so I can get a better angle while scraping.
posted by zebra at 12:33 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

I have found this method to be my personal favorite. They don't stick to the pan because they are never quite touching it - they are sitting on salt.
posted by solotoro at 12:40 PM on September 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

teflon pan for frying, and non stick foil for roasting. that foil works amazingly - I just use a quick spray from an oil mister and get perfect crunchy roasted potatoes with very little oil, so way less calories.
posted by 5_13_23_42_69_666 at 1:19 PM on September 28, 2018

I use parchment paper for roasting, and the potatoes never stick.
posted by umber vowel at 1:31 PM on September 28, 2018 [3 favorites]

You need to let the potatoes dry thoroughly after boiling (like overnight) before frying.
Lots of oil doesn’t hurt.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 2:05 PM on September 28, 2018

Yes, nthing parchment paper for roasting.
posted by jgirl at 2:14 PM on September 28, 2018

Yes, parchment paper.

The problem in general is your potatoes are too moist at some stage, could be type of potato, could be salting the potato before cooking which draws out additional moisture during the cooking process.

Try the parchment paper method. (I dislike waxy potatoes and do not believe that is a solution here unless you like waxy potatoes in general. YMMV.)
posted by jbenben at 2:34 PM on September 28, 2018

Kenji's method quoted above is amazing and you should try it just once because you learn a lot about roasting potatoes while you do it.
BUT I've roasted both raw and parboiled and boiled potatoes since I was ten or something on every type of pan there is and with all sorts of fat (preferring goose fat), and it is not very difficult. I can't figure out what you are doing, but my best guess is to agree your pan is too hot. So the suggestions to preheat the pan go against my experience, I've even started them on a cold pan with fine results, but I have a gas range so it goes fast from cold to medium.
If it really, really isn't too hot you might be trying to turn them over a few seconds too early. Try the low to medium roasting method first. It still only takes a very short time to get them golden brown and crispy. If it isn't that, go the opposite way, and try to wait a little before you attempt to turn them. I usually walk around a bit and chop something to dampen my impatience.
posted by mumimor at 3:26 PM on September 28, 2018

Response by poster: Thank you! This is all helpful and now I have a lot of things to try! To answer some questions that are coming up:

The secret is the kind of potatoes you're using. What kind of potatoes are you using?

Usually small redskin potatoes, cut into halves or quarters. Sometimes Yukon golds. Definitely never baking potatoes.

What are you using to scrape them up,

A plain nylon spatula.

and how jam-packed is your pan or baking sheet?

I give them some space. If you're looking down from above, you can see a bit more potato than pan, but you can see plenty of pan.

[various comments about pre-boiling]

I have the same problem regardless of whether or not I pre-boil. But I'll admit that usually I don't, because weeknights and multitasking and finite energy. (FWIW, my goal here is "tasty and on the table," not "Kenji Lopez-Altishly jawdropping," so I'm willing to sacrifice a certain amount of awesomeness if it means I don't have to pre-boil.)

I think your frying pan might be too hot.

If the oil between the pan and chunk of potato starts to burn, it will act like a carbonized glue.

I'm pretty sure this is a potato problem, not an oil problem. When I'm oven-roasting, I do it at 450 F, which is what basically every recipe calls for -- and I can roast lots of other things at that temperature without smoke or burnt-oil-gunk or sticking. When I'm pan-frying, it's harder to peg exactly how hot the pan is getting, but again, there are other vegetables I fry at the same burner setting, and they don't end up glued to the pan by burnt oil.
posted by nebulawindphone at 3:26 PM on September 28, 2018

Try a metal spatula with a beveled edge and see if it fixes the problem. I have this issue at my parents' house because all their spatulas are either plastic or silicone - I think the slight flex means the spatula gets into the potato instead of underneath it.
posted by ersatzhuman at 6:27 PM on September 28, 2018 [4 favorites]

Try a fish spatula, and press down as you slide it under the potatoes.

To say the obvious thing: this is incompatible with the non-stick suggestions above.
posted by meaty shoe puppet at 6:33 PM on September 28, 2018

Try tossing the potatoes in enough oil to coat them before adding to the pan.
posted by STFUDonnie at 7:56 PM on September 28, 2018 [2 favorites]

I always have some that stick. I try to let them get petty brown before the 1st turn so I can use a metal spatula to lift any that are stuck. I just tried tossing potatoes - white & sweet - in corn starch before roasting, and they were a bit crispier without too much work, although I did use an extra dish, but I was able to recover from the effort of washing it, because I was full full of tasty roasted taters.
posted by theora55 at 8:11 PM on September 28, 2018 [1 favorite]

They're not ready to be flipped yet. You know how when you cook a cut of meat in a pan and you go to flip it - if it's ready to flip it will release easily from the pan, but if you do it too soon it sticks? Potatoes are the same way. The secret is patience. And a little bit of fat, but mostly, patience.
posted by Mizu at 5:33 AM on September 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Try tossing the potatoes in enough oil to coat them before adding to the pan.

I do this already.
posted by nebulawindphone at 7:07 AM on September 29, 2018

I have the same problem regardless of whether or not I pre-boil. But I'll admit that usually I don't, because weeknights and multitasking and finite energy.

I don't think it fixes the problem at hand, but it's still a neat and easy trick: do your pre-boiling by shoving them into the microwave and nuking them on full blast for five minutes.
posted by Too-Ticky at 8:29 AM on September 29, 2018 [1 favorite]

Soak the cut potatoes in cold water for at least an hour, or overnight in the fridge.

Pat the potatoes very thoroughly dry just before roasting.

If the first one you try to flip gets stuck, leave them to cook another minute before flipping. If it happens again after a minute, wait another minute. I was flipping potatoes too early and too often for years, always worried that they would burn. It took some patience, but I eventually realized that the moment when I perceived the potatoes as "about to burn! must flip now!" was actually their stickiest point in the process. Either earlier or later works better.
posted by Former Congressional Representative Lenny Lemming at 2:59 PM on September 29, 2018

One more thing - put the oiled potatoes in the pan, then apply the heat.

Don’t heat the oiled pan and then add potatoes.

When they heat up with the pan it distributes the heat evenly, and doesn’t suddenly cool the pan when the first heat transfers to the potatoes.
posted by St. Peepsburg at 11:04 AM on October 7, 2018