Po-tay-toes, fried.

I went out to a work thing the other night. With drinks. Then I came home. There were lots of people in the house. Then I fell asleep in our alcove. Then I got woken up when everyone else was going to bed. Got into bed fully dressed. There are few things more gross than waking up at 10 in the morning in your jeans with the full lipstick-and-eyeliner things still happening on your face. Anyway, I woke up and I immediately wanted food. Something starchy. There's a surprise. Ideally I wanted noodles, but a) I always want noodles and b) our fridge and cupboards were woefully empty. No noodles for Sophie then.

There were three things in the fridge that were not condiments: onions, garlic, and potatoes. This meant I was going to have to bust out the pan and actually do some chopping. But I thought to myself: hey, I can work with these three ingredients. Because I'm German. Germans are good at potatoes. Especially at frying them in oil.

Granted, it's a pretty simple recipe, but the main reason I'm putting this up on das blog is that people often forget about the joys of fried potatoes. Also, you can pretty much make this for any meal. They're a stand-in for hash browns (breakfast), and obviously it's not difficult to imagine having them for lunch and dinner, maybe with a nice salad. Simon and I had them with veggie sausages the other night, because I was not allowed to make mashed potatoes for him.

The whiskey had nothing to do with this, I promise. Move along, people.

I had mine with cheapo supermarket coleslaw on that morning, which was alriiight but…. Okay I'll save the coleslaw rant for another day. Suffice to say it's high time I started making my own again.

You will need:

A pan. The bigger the better. It's not easy to achieve nice evenly browned potatoes in a tiny pan. You're constantly stirring to give all your little potato friends a chance to make direct contact with the pan, whilst at the same time trying not to turn them into a mushy mess from all that stirring.

Potatoes, halved lengthwise, then sliced thinly (see photo). The amount really is up to you. Who am I to tell you how many potatoes you want to eat? You gotta make your own choices once in awhile.

Onion. A really big one, halved, then sliced thinly. 

Garlic, minced. A whole bulb. No, just trust me on this. If you really are sceptical, then by all means just toss in 2-3 little segments worth. But you'll be depriving yourself of delicious garlicky potato goodness. Not my problem.

Olive oil. 

Pepper and salt, and some paprika to make it look pretty, and to make you feel better about eating yet another meal that is entirely brown. I'm only human.

How you do:

Pour a healthy glug of olive oil into the pan, whack in your sliced potatoes. Stir intermittently so that all the slices are coated and have a chance to fry. When the potatoes are just about starting to brown, throw in the onion and garlic. I recommend not doing it before then, otherwise the onions will start to go slightly black and charred… they just don't need to be in for as long as the taters. I learned this by doing it myself, as you may have noticed. Salt/pepper/paprika. Guten Appetit.

PS: We have food in the house now. All is well again.