Simply delicious: Fried Potatoes

Fried Potatoes with Bun-bun (Photo by Cynthia Nelson)

Hi Everyone,

Picture this: finely chopped onions cooked slowly until soft and sweet; tomatoes cooked on low heat until they break down and melt, rustically pulpy; crushed garlic so soft that it creams easily when pressed against the back of a spoon. This is the base, the foundation for a pan of fried potatoes. Cut into chunks, the potatoes are tossed with the onion-tomato-garlic mixture; the pan is covered and left to cook low and slow until the potatoes are cooked through; soft but not mushy. The few wiri-wiri or maiwiri peppers tossed on top of the potatoes before lidding the pot are tender, easy to mash and mix with the potatoes when eating. A plate of hot fluffy white rice or leafy clapped paratha roti completes the meal. You hungry yet?

In Guyanese parlance we use the words fry and fried when referring to a method of cooking that visitors would consider to be sautéed. People from other parts of the region have their own colloquial term for this type of cooking. For example, in Barbados they would say dove (pronounced doov-ed). Fried Potatoes is a simple, humble dish to make; even if you do not have onions, tomatoes and garlic, salt and pepper alone will do. The method of cooking potatoes covered on low heat helps concentrate the natural flavour of the potato and yields a pleasing texture on the palette. It is one of those things that you can quickly put together when you are short on time, wondering what to cook to feed hungry mouths or better yet, when, like me, you simply crave fried potatoes. I must admit, I prefer mine with rice rather than roti.