Duck Fat Potatoes

The last time we were in Chicago, our friend Ryan told us about a fabulous place called Hot Doug's, a non-descript hot dog joint that sells gourmet hot dogs (specials include "Game of the Week" sausages and a foie gras duck sausage, plus your regular Chicago-style dog) and, more intriguingly, duck fat fries for sale on Friday and Saturday only.

The trick about getting excited about eating a foie gras sausage and duck fat fries, apparently, is not to get too excited. This is so that when you walk up to the restaurant and find, say, a line wrapping around the corner and down the block, your hopes and dreams for the day (or week) are not crushed into oblivion. (Not willing to stand in a line that was not moving at all--I mean, people brought their own stools to wait here--we ended up walking down the street for tacos instead.)

But, how can you pass up the plump, glistening, $3 clumps of duck fat waiting to be purchased in the butcher case at Sparrow's, one of our local grocery stores? You can't, and we didn't.
Alas, we have yet to try the deep-fried potato with this savory lipid, but last weekend we treated ourselves to some breakfast-style potatoes fried up in duck fat.

On Saturday, we cut up some red skin potatoes and threw them into a pan with a good dollop of duck fat. We let those bubble away into a crispy state of fried-ness and then, just before tender, added some onions and garlic. Then we added up some chopped fresh breakfast sausage and added some rosemary, salt and pepper. For my plate, I added a lightly fried egg and -- wow. The egg yolk really added to the creaminess of the potatoes (after their satisfying crunch) and the duck fat, with the sausage, added a good level of flavor.


The next day, the potato hankering was for light and crispy potato pancakes (this came after hearing my friend Rachel talk about sweet potato pancakes made for a holiday party). We grated two potatoes into a small bowl, rinsed them with water, then carefully drained the water out (but not all of it!) to keep the potato starch in the bottom of the bowl. If you do this, you'll see for yourself -- the bit of white, sludgy starch swishing around the bottom of the bowl. We mixed this up with the potatoes, seasoned them, and added chopped red and green onions to the mix. We heated, again, a dollop of duck fat into the pan, then made thin patties of potatoes and slid them in. Make sure that a) you have good ventilation so that the smoke alarm doesn't go off while you're crisping them up, and b) you don't overlap them on a plate when you're done, because they will continue to cook and steam up on each other, which will make them soggy. Again, a great breakfast treat- crispy, savory, and full of starchy goodness.

Take that, Hot Doug's!