I made a soft, nutty shredded potato stir-fry today.
The ingredients are simple, but it tastes so good that it’s the kind of side dish everyone in the family, from kids to grandparents, tends to love.
Potatoes, onion, carrot, and scallion are pretty much staples in every Korean kitchen.
They’re basic ingredients that show up as the foundation for all kinds of banchan (Korean side dishes).
This time, I’ll show you how to turn just these four everyday ingredients into an easy shredded potato stir-fry.
-Ingredients
2 potatoes
1/2 onion
1 stalk scallion
1/4 carrot
1/2 teaspoon chicken stock powder (standard-size spoon, not a measuring spoon)
3 tablespoons cooking oil
Salt: 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon (used separately, at two different steps)
1 tablespoon sesame oil
1 tablespoon toasted sesame seeds
-Tools
Mandoline slicer
Cutting board
Knife
Pot
Mixing bowl
Vegetable peeler
Fork
Now let me walk you through the cooking process, along with a few ingredients you can skip or swap in.
Peel the potatoes and carrot with a vegetable peeler.
You only need a small amount of carrot. Think of it less as a flavor ingredient and more as something that adds a nice pop of color.
Wash the onion and scallion as well and set them aside.
Julienne the carrot using a mandoline slicer, cutting it into medium-thin strips.
Here’s a trick I use: holding the potato directly with your hand while running it across the slicer can be risky. Instead, press a fork into the top of the potato and use that to guide it back and forth. It keeps your hand safe while you slice.
Once the slicer can’t get any more out of the potato, just cut the last bit by hand with a knife.
Put the shredded potatoes in a bowl and soak them in cold water for about 10 seconds.
This pulls out some of the starch. If you skip this step, the starch left on the potatoes will make them stick together and turn gummy while cooking.
Even just 10 seconds in cold water is enough for the water to turn cloudy and white from the starch.
Drain the water, then let the potatoes sit in a strainer for a moment to dry off.
One thing to watch for here: if you cut the potatoes too thin, they’ll fall apart easily, and if they’re too thick, they won’t cook through properly. Aim for strips about 3mm thick.
Slice the carrot even thinner than the potato.
Cut the onion into pieces of a reasonable size. Cut the scallion into large chunks, since it’s only going into the pan to make scallion oil.
Fill a pot with enough water to cover the potatoes, then add a tablespoon of sea salt (regular table salt works too).
Once the water comes to a boil, add the potatoes to blanch them.
Blanching them first, rather than just stir-frying from raw, cuts down on cooking time since raw potato takes a while to cook through in a pan. Adding salt to the water also helps keep the potato strips from breaking apart later during the stir-fry.
Blanch the potatoes for about 50 seconds to a minute.
Rinse them briefly under cold water afterward, then drain well in a strainer. Since they’ll go straight into hot oil next, getting them as dry as possible really matters here.
I used one wide, deep frying pan for both blanching and stir-frying. Cooking everything in one pan also means less to wash afterward.
Wipe the pan dry, then add 3 tablespoons of cooking oil. You don’t need much more than that.
Add the scallion pieces you set aside earlier. Cooking the scallion in the oil first infuses it with flavor, and stir-frying the potatoes in that scallion oil afterward makes a noticeable difference in taste.
Keep the heat on the lowest setting and let the scallion oil slowly infuse.
Once the scallion turns golden brown, take it out of the pan. What’s left behind is the scallion oil.
If you don’t have scallion on hand, you can skip this step entirely, no problem.
Turn the heat up to medium-low and add the potatoes, carrot, and onion all at once.
Stir-fry everything in the scallion oil.
Now it’s time to season the stir-fry.
Add 1 teaspoon of salt and 1/2 teaspoon of chicken stock powder.
If you’d like, you can also add some thinly sliced bacon along with the vegetables. It makes this dish even tastier.
Keep stirring gently as it cooks. Toss carefully rather than stirring hard, since the potato strips can break apart easily.
Taste a piece partway through. If it’s under-seasoned, add a bit more chicken stock powder to adjust. Once the potatoes taste soft and fully cooked through, turn off the heat.
It’s tough to give an exact cook time for this step, since it really depends on the size of the potato strips, how hot your stove runs, and other small variables.
The most reliable way to know it’s done is to taste a piece as you go, checking both the texture and the seasoning along the way.
Once the potatoes are cooked through, turn off the heat.
To round out the flavor with a nuttier finish, I stirred in a tablespoon each of sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds. If you don’t have those on hand, a sprinkle of black pepper works fine too.
And there you have it: a delicious shredded potato stir-fry.
This is a dish that’s best cooked right before you eat, rather than stored in the fridge for later. That’s really the only way to enjoy it warm and at its best.
Hope you have a happy, delicious meal 🙂