Potato balls

Sprinkle some salt and your favourite sauce before serving.

There’s something really endearing about fried potatoes. That’s why we try to come up with different forms and shapes for what is essentially taters deep-fried in oil, slightly crispy on the outside but still soft, pillowy and carby on the inside. We’ve got wedges, tater tots, hash browns, pomme souffles and, of course, all the thick-cut, thin-cut, crinkle-cut, skin-on, skin-off, shoestring, curly and waffle fries you can think of.

So here’s my personal addition to the running list of fried potato products. These are inspired by Taiwanese sweet potato balls, which are insanely addictive to just pop in your mouth as you stroll through a night market. But instead of sweet potatoes, I used regular potatoes. And instead of tapioca starch or corn starch to form the dough, I used potato starch!

Just cook the potatoes, knead in flour, add potato starch and salt to turn it into a dough, roll into balls and fry away. It’s that simple!

After peeling the potatoes, cut into halves. — Filepic

Ingredients

(makes about 40 balls)

2 medium potatoes (240g)

1tsp kosher salt

40g all-purpose flour

40g potato starch

You can mash the potato with a fork or masher, but the result will be coarser. — Filepic

Method

1. Peel potatoes and cut them in half. Then put them into a pot and cover with water, and bring to a boil over high heat. Simmer for 20 minutes until cooked through.

2. After the potatoes are cooked, take them out of the water and pass them through a tammy (also known as drum) sieve until super fine. You could also just mash the potatoes with a fork, but this will give the balls a much rougher texture. When done, mix the salt, all-purpose flour and potato starch together in a mixing bowl with the mash, and knead into a smooth dough.

3. Divide the potato dough into 8g balls. You should end up with about 35 to 40 balls this way.

Deep-fried potato balls. — Photos: LOH YI JUN

4. Pour oil into a deep pan or pot, at least 5cm deep. Heat it up to 180°C. Deep-fry the potato balls in the oil in two or three batches until golden brown. Make sure to stir and agitate the potato balls in the first minute of cooking to make sure they don’t stick together. (They should take about 5-6 minutes to cook.)

5. When done, remove the potato balls from the oil and season with a pinch of salt, and whatever sauces you like. Serve hot!

Contributed by LOH JI YUN/junandtonic.com