"Our confit potatoes have become rather legendary," say the QCH team, and anyone on Instagram can attest to that. "They're the only dish we haven't once taken off the menu since their happy conception in spring 2013. We’d just opened the restaurant and needed to find something to serve with the chops. Shaun was adamant that QCH didn’t need chips but we obviously needed something indulgent. We started making layered potatoes and after much trial and error and refrying leftovers, landed on these crispy golden nuggets."
The Quality Chop House's confit potatoes
These super-indulgent carby cuboids cooked in duck fat are the stuff of London restaurant legend and make even the crispiest, fluffiest roast potatoes seem inferior
Quality Chop House's confit potatoes are an absolute carbohydrate dream
Andre Montgomery
Serves 6
Preparation time 24 hours
Cooking time 4 minutes
Ingredients
- 1kg Maris Piper potatoes
- 125g duck fat
- 1 tbsp salt
- Oil, for deep frying
- Maldon sea salt, to taste
The mustard dressing
- Juice of ½ lemon
- ½ tsp cider vinegar
- 375ml vegetable oil
Method
- Preheat the oven to 120°C and line a standard 1.7l terrine mould with baking parchment.
- Peel and wash the potatoes, then use a mandoline to slice them as thinly as possible. In a large bowl, toss the slices thoroughly with the duck fat and salt.
- Layer the potatoes in the mould, one slice at a time, until you’ve built up multiple tiers. Once you’ve used up all the potato, cover the top with baking parchment and cook for about 3 hours until the potatoes are completely tender. Place a small baking tray or plate on top of the baking parchment covering the potatoes, along with a few heavy weights (we find tins work well) and leave to cool, then refrigerate overnight to compress.
- The next day, remove from the tray and cut the potato into 3x3cm pieces.
- Heat enough oil for deep-fat frying to 190°C, either in a deep fryer or a heavy-based saucepan. Fry the pieces for about 4 minutes until croissant-gold.
- Sprinkle over some Maldon salt, drizzle with mustard dressing and eat immediately.
Recipe from 'Quality Chop House: Modern Recipes and Stories from a London Classic' by William Lander, Daniel Morgenthau and Shaun Searley; photography by Andre Montgomery. Published by Quadrille
