Pommes de Terre en Allumettes

Pommes de terre en allumettes (matchstick potatoes) teach one indispensable frying principle: potatoes become crisp in the fat, not on the draining rack. Their one-fifth-inch sides expose plenty of surface, but that surface stays crisp only when you leave the allumettes in the hot fat until their fierce bubbling becomes fine and sparse. Drain them too soon and they soften almost as quickly as you can salt them.

The original recipe assumed a deep vat held steadily hot, a wire basket, and enough hands to cut and fry brigade quantities just before service. For one cook, one stove, one evening, the honest equivalents are a heavy pot, a thermometer, a spider, and three small batches made from two pounds of potatoes. The great vat and service crew were scaffolding. Squaring the potatoes, cutting true five-millimetre rods, and drying them completely in the fat are the dish, and those remain.

The finished allumettes should be straight, deeply golden, and audibly crisp under the teeth, with tender potato still inside. Watch the bubbles more closely than the clock. That final minute in the fat decides everything.