I'd probably pick bread as my favorite food, but at one point doc had me try going gluten free to rule out some possibilities. No gluten issue, but it really made me value a nice potato! Potato is just underground bread.
Syracuse, New York is nicknamed Salt City, as it was a huge commercial salt producer for many years. There is a dish called Syracuse Salt Potatoes which boils the potatoes in a very saturated brine, as salt was in no short supply.
The skin on the small potatoes keeps too much of the salt from being absorbed, and the centers get such a creamy texture while as the water evaporated off the skins from residual heat, it leaves a beautiful powdered salt coating all over the outside. Then cover or dip (I like to dip so the salt doesn't run off) in melted butter and enjoy! Must be tasted to be believed.
Oh I want to try it out but I'm kind of scare by any salt recipe from the new world. It seems that USA' and Canada's standard size of cristal salt is very diffdrent from the french one, living many of my dishes from there way over salted. I guess if we're talking about melted salt and brine saturation it could be fine but I'm still scared.
Can I use any potatoes or do I need something starchy/tender/...?
Oh wow, I never even considered the salt itself would be an issue. It looks like you would likely have coarse grey salt, gros sel, as your large grain salt? I use Kosher or coarse sea salt, which from what I can find, is fairly the same volumetrically, but things also said grey salt is denser with actual salt. The saltwater is pretty much a saturated solution or close to it, so I don't know if you could actually oversalt the water. The weight ratios I found have around 1 lb salt per 4 lb potatoes.
For the potatoes themselves, we have little bags of boiling potatoes, either white, red, or a mix or red, white, and purple. They have thin skins and hold up well for boiling. Looking up French styles, la Charlotte, Ratte, l'Amandine, Belle de Fontenay, Annabelle, Franceline, Nicola, Roseval, and Chérie all seem likely useable. Ours are around the size of a golf or ping pong ball. All yours seem more finger shaped so I can't tell exactly how large they are.
Maybe you can find a French recipe for the papas arrugadas the other commentor mentioned to get a version with things you can buy more easily. Other than the sauce, the idea seems the same.
Oh... So I should use some gros sel whenever kosher salt is mention. That changes many thing. I probably try it (one day) and keep you updated but I feel like many times a recipe seems straighforwars it is because we make a lot of assumtions that don't necessary match another culture well.
I've tried reading a few things now, and I think that is going to be your best starting point. I can only get so much without knowing the French words, since I'm sure the detail of the translation is much more important when talking about something as specific as tiny structures and textures.
It sounds like kosher salt is more flakey, while gros sel is cubic, but I'm thinking that they are not fine salts and will leave more air pockets when measuring by volume should keep you closest. Grey salt from the sea is going to have some taste that a white salt from a mine isn't, but if it's just being used 90% for whatever osmosis trick it is doing to potatoes, that probably isn't going to make a huge difference.
My understanding is all recipes in English (or at least from America) are written with kosher salt in mind. Salt that would go in a shaker is much too fine and will make food much saltier than intended, it's probably twice as much salt.
It's easy to slip one's mind trying to share something like this, that seems like it would be the most mundane recipe, as probably for both of us, salt and potatoes are daily staples we don't pay much mind to, we just know what to use.
Indeed so, but I think their true genius is as a tapa. They pair well with lager on a sunny day (which you'll obviously be drinking a lot more of, because of the salt), and they beat the hell out of a packet of crisps.
You probably know this stuff better than me since you're coeliac, but just in case you don't: try the Loopy Whisk's bread recipes. I have a couple of coeliac family members and these are by far the best results I've gotten for making gluten free bread for them
As someone who was diagnosed at 43, I relate so much to this comment. Most things, buttered toast included, aren't worth the weeks of pain. Although, I have seriously considered a Dick's Deluxe burger on a couple of occasions.
No need to be high, hot buttered toast is, in fact, amongst, if not the, tastiest creation on the planet. It's got carbs and it's got fat, a combination which is almost as temoting as sugar and fat.
Yes, raw garlic needs to be cooked and the powdered salt just isn’t the same. Now it’s no longer “just sprinkling” something on if you need to manipulate it first. Even if you need to chop it.
I melt the butter in a pan, put the garlic in with it. Then use the bread and soak up the butter/garlic mix, before sprinkling paprika on top and throwing it in the oven.
I went through a butter toast phase when i was about 10. It started as just 1 slice after school. Then, it was 2. Then, 3. Then 1-2 every hour before bed until my mom finally put a stop to it. You could smell that the downstairs neighbors were crack heads, but i dont think i ever had a contact high to trigger the butter toast phase. I just liked toast for the toast of it.
On of last memories of my father when he had cancer was eating an entire loaf of toast with him. We just kept laughing and making more until there was no more bread on the house
Not only real bead, the kicker is good yeast, there is a yeast that gives this Great Taste of bread, it's hard to find. But some yeast is vastly superior to others.
Yep, i sometimes bake bread and using different sourdoughs (which is wild yeast) changes the taste considerably. And using only industrial yeast is immediately noticeable.
I also do all sorts of Homebrewing, maple wine, sometimes it's sugar, I'm getting into beer as soon as I can find a good source of monitoring for cheap which I apparently cannot do but I have used some native keys and it is amazing different flavors again from how awful the taste from Turbo yeast is.
i used to work next door to a bakery. the owner/baker grew up (and learned to bake) in belgium. she imported her flour. probably still does. it was my first job and i still miss that summer sometimes. Tina and I still do coffee once a month.
I'm thinking a dark roast in a Moka pot. Just some strong, good, bitter coffee. It reminds me of dark chocolate. Normally, I would just drink it black. But thinking of dipping buttered toast in it, I think maybe a sweet cream might be nice in it.
I have never tried it with coffee. I bet of it were a sweeter bread, it would be fantastic. But we are slowly circling back to dipping donuts in coffee.
When I lived at my dad's a long time ago now he got furious at me for eating straight slices of bread with butter on them instead of making a sandwich.
I loved that shit and I'm sure I still would but that experience kinda killed it for me.
Even just butter melting on warm fresh bread. I love my breadmaker for that, it's so simple, cheap, and easy. Throw the ingredients in (flour, salt, yeast, sugar, water and margarine) and walk away. 3 hours later you're scarfing it down while the whole house smells like freshly baked bread.
I only have to resist that when I bake my own bread. Which I resist by being lazy and not making bread since I want it NOW and not 4 to 6 hours from now after working the dough and letting it rise.
Once again the lack of the word "tartine" and a proper translation for "brioche au pur tartinée de beurre" shows what is missing in English speaking cultures.
83 replies
I remember fresh bread and butter. Yum.
Not anymore though because my body decided it makes sense to attack itself when I eat the tiniest particle of gluten. Celiac disease. Ugh.
Potatoes and butter.
I'd probably pick bread as my favorite food, but at one point doc had me try going gluten free to rule out some possibilities. No gluten issue, but it really made me value a nice potato! Potato is just underground bread.
Yes but don't forget the salt there.
Syracuse, New York is nicknamed Salt City, as it was a huge commercial salt producer for many years. There is a dish called Syracuse Salt Potatoes which boils the potatoes in a very saturated brine, as salt was in no short supply.
The skin on the small potatoes keeps too much of the salt from being absorbed, and the centers get such a creamy texture while as the water evaporated off the skins from residual heat, it leaves a beautiful powdered salt coating all over the outside. Then cover or dip (I like to dip so the salt doesn't run off) in melted butter and enjoy! Must be tasted to be believed.
Oh I want to try it out but I'm kind of scare by any salt recipe from the new world. It seems that USA' and Canada's standard size of cristal salt is very diffdrent from the french one, living many of my dishes from there way over salted. I guess if we're talking about melted salt and brine saturation it could be fine but I'm still scared.
Can I use any potatoes or do I need something starchy/tender/...?
Oh wow, I never even considered the salt itself would be an issue. It looks like you would likely have coarse grey salt, gros sel, as your large grain salt? I use Kosher or coarse sea salt, which from what I can find, is fairly the same volumetrically, but things also said grey salt is denser with actual salt. The saltwater is pretty much a saturated solution or close to it, so I don't know if you could actually oversalt the water. The weight ratios I found have around 1 lb salt per 4 lb potatoes.
For the potatoes themselves, we have little bags of boiling potatoes, either white, red, or a mix or red, white, and purple. They have thin skins and hold up well for boiling. Looking up French styles, la Charlotte, Ratte, l'Amandine, Belle de Fontenay, Annabelle, Franceline, Nicola, Roseval, and Chérie all seem likely useable. Ours are around the size of a golf or ping pong ball. All yours seem more finger shaped so I can't tell exactly how large they are.
Maybe you can find a French recipe for the papas arrugadas the other commentor mentioned to get a version with things you can buy more easily. Other than the sauce, the idea seems the same.
Oh... So I should use some gros sel whenever kosher salt is mention. That changes many thing. I probably try it (one day) and keep you updated but I feel like many times a recipe seems straighforwars it is because we make a lot of assumtions that don't necessary match another culture well.
I've tried reading a few things now, and I think that is going to be your best starting point. I can only get so much without knowing the French words, since I'm sure the detail of the translation is much more important when talking about something as specific as tiny structures and textures.
It sounds like kosher salt is more flakey, while gros sel is cubic, but I'm thinking that they are not fine salts and will leave more air pockets when measuring by volume should keep you closest. Grey salt from the sea is going to have some taste that a white salt from a mine isn't, but if it's just being used 90% for whatever osmosis trick it is doing to potatoes, that probably isn't going to make a huge difference.
My understanding is all recipes in English (or at least from America) are written with kosher salt in mind. Salt that would go in a shaker is much too fine and will make food much saltier than intended, it's probably twice as much salt.
It's easy to slip one's mind trying to share something like this, that seems like it would be the most mundane recipe, as probably for both of us, salt and potatoes are daily staples we don't pay much mind to, we just know what to use.
Very similar to papas arrugadas, a traditional dish in the Canary Islands.
Yum, those with that mojo sauce and a nice piece of fish does sound really good!
Indeed so, but I think their true genius is as a tapa. They pair well with lager on a sunny day (which you'll obviously be drinking a lot more of, because of the salt), and they beat the hell out of a packet of crisps.
You are really selling me on the Canarian lifestyle.... 😎
I love potatoes. I used to talk down on them too. Not anymore. Meat and potatoes, or beans and potatoes whatever you want.
You probably know this stuff better than me since you're coeliac, but just in case you don't: try the Loopy Whisk's bread recipes. I have a couple of coeliac family members and these are by far the best results I've gotten for making gluten free bread for them
Thanks. I'll check it out.
As someone who was diagnosed at 43, I relate so much to this comment. Most things, buttered toast included, aren't worth the weeks of pain. Although, I have seriously considered a Dick's Deluxe burger on a couple of occasions.
Nothing like eating Dicks to make the pain stop.
Couldn't resist the opportunity on that one, eh?
I want you to know that I barely, barely tried to resist that opportunity.
OP probably high when writing the post
No need to be high, hot buttered toast is, in fact, amongst, if not the, tastiest creation on the planet. It's got carbs and it's got fat, a combination which is almost as temoting as sugar and fat.
You also sprinkle some stuff on it for variety, cinnamon, curry, cumin, sprinkles, sugar, etc.
Have you heard of garlic?
Yes, raw garlic needs to be cooked and the powdered salt just isn’t the same. Now it’s no longer “just sprinkling” something on if you need to manipulate it first. Even if you need to chop it.
garlic only needs to be cooked for babies :P, but it can be part of the toasting process too.
I melt the butter in a pan, put the garlic in with it. Then use the bread and soak up the butter/garlic mix, before sprinkling paprika on top and throwing it in the oven.
Fairy bread.
I went through a butter toast phase when i was about 10. It started as just 1 slice after school. Then, it was 2. Then, 3. Then 1-2 every hour before bed until my mom finally put a stop to it. You could smell that the downstairs neighbors were crack heads, but i dont think i ever had a contact high to trigger the butter toast phase. I just liked toast for the toast of it.
Wait, we're supposed to restrain ourselves??
What is restraint?
Me not telling you what I really think about you.
(just kidding, though) <3
<3
Buttered toast with some garlic powder was one of my go-to "I'm broke as hell, but at least this is tasty" foods.
Hmm.. I wonder how onion powder would be. Onion is my favorite bagel.
It would be different, but you'd probably still like it. Not as oniony with a powder.
TF I'm in my 40s and when I make bread with dinner it's basically the same thing with some kind of fancy bread. Olive loaf is calling my name.
Fancy bread is for when you're not broke as hell.
After how many decades should I expect this "occasional phase" to end?
Carb loading
My daughter has just discovered the joys of fresh baguette with butter. It's all she wants all day long
This is mainly why i don't buy bread loafs anymore. I will make 4 or 6 slices of toast and wonder why i'm such a fatass.
"occasional phase", sir you mispelled "permanent condition of humanity"
Sounds like a "it's 2am and I'm stoned" thing. So sometimes, yes.
On of last memories of my father when he had cancer was eating an entire loaf of toast with him. We just kept laughing and making more until there was no more bread on the house
Instead of putting it on toast, make a grilled PB&J. Butter it and cook it in a skillet just like a grilled cheese.
but i like the jam to be cold
I'd say it's worth trying once. It's quite delicious.
i did at some point, i burnt my tongue on the hot jam and the rest was meh. just not my thing
Yes, but with real bread.
It's super delicious and I feel fulfilled after 2 or 3 slices.
Not only real bead, the kicker is good yeast, there is a yeast that gives this Great Taste of bread, it's hard to find. But some yeast is vastly superior to others.
Yep, i sometimes bake bread and using different sourdoughs (which is wild yeast) changes the taste considerably. And using only industrial yeast is immediately noticeable.
I also do all sorts of Homebrewing, maple wine, sometimes it's sugar, I'm getting into beer as soon as I can find a good source of monitoring for cheap which I apparently cannot do but I have used some native keys and it is amazing different flavors again from how awful the taste from Turbo yeast is.
Yes, but only if I squeeze a bit of honey on top too. Honey toast is where it’s at.
Come to France and try toasted baguette with salted butter, it won't be a phase.
i used to work next door to a bakery. the owner/baker grew up (and learned to bake) in belgium. she imported her flour. probably still does. it was my first job and i still miss that summer sometimes. Tina and I still do coffee once a month.
Lately I have discovered plain toast is pretty good.
That all depends on if I smoke weed or not.
Sometimes I like toasted sandwiches instead of grilled. Toasted bread is just 🤌.
Butter that toast. Make super rich hot chocolate. Use some half & half in it, even. Dip that buttery toast in the hot chocolate.
that sounds wonderful but coffee instead of cocoa (i eat chocolate twice a year and it must be the fanciest. i am not high maintenance)
I'm thinking a dark roast in a Moka pot. Just some strong, good, bitter coffee. It reminds me of dark chocolate. Normally, I would just drink it black. But thinking of dipping buttered toast in it, I think maybe a sweet cream might be nice in it.
I have never tried it with coffee. I bet of it were a sweeter bread, it would be fantastic. But we are slowly circling back to dipping donuts in coffee.
Im going to go make some toast right now
When I lived at my dad's a long time ago now he got furious at me for eating straight slices of bread with butter on them instead of making a sandwich.
I loved that shit and I'm sure I still would but that experience kinda killed it for me.
I'm french, I call that breakfast.
Its just you. I'm not restraining.
Remeinded me of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq0JZviQU9o
Even just butter melting on warm fresh bread. I love my breadmaker for that, it's so simple, cheap, and easy. Throw the ingredients in (flour, salt, yeast, sugar, water and margarine) and walk away. 3 hours later you're scarfing it down while the whole house smells like freshly baked bread.
Let me tell you all about a little thing called buttered toast dipped in hot coffee. Hell of a breakfast.
Hey Peter Frampton, do you like toast too? Yes, as do I. It is warm and crunchy. And the perfect place for jelly to lay.
Wait till you try different breads. Raisin bread, rye, rye with caraway seeds OMG.
If you're a baller like me, you can also put avocado on it.
And that's why you will never own a house
I only have to resist that when I bake my own bread. Which I resist by being lazy and not making bread since I want it NOW and not 4 to 6 hours from now after working the dough and letting it rise.
Bread makers are a gift of the gods.
Does it make bread NOW? 🤔
Yeah. Made some earlier today.
Toasted rye, thick cut and some extra salty butter ... 🤤
This but with peanut butter instead of butter, and a glass of oat milk.
Usually when I bake bread, I have to remind myself that there are more than 30 seconds in a week and this has to last.
Once again the lack of the word "tartine" and a proper translation for "brioche au pur tartinée de beurre" shows what is missing in English speaking cultures.