- Claire has a personal vendetta to settle
with this spoon.
- [Claire] Correct.
- There's no, she's not
doing this for any particular
reason for the episode,
she's just doing--
- The spoon's gonna be gone now.
- How do I do it?
- I would go this way.
[upbeat music]
- No!
Ah!
Hey everyone, I'm Claire.
We're in the BA Test Kitchen
and today I'm making gourmet
Tater Tots.
This makes it look like
I've already made them
and that's mine, and that's the original.
Because they're on identical plates.
- [Producer] That's a wrap.
- [chuckles] Right, I'm done.
I don't know of a single person
who doesn't unequivocally love Tater Tots.
Myself included.
It's a perfect food.
What is more delightful in the world
than a Tater Tot?
Of all the Gourmet Makes in history,
there's no difference in enjoyment
when I'm an adult as when I was a kid.
They're still incredible as ever.
First of all, potato.
One of the greatest foods in the world.
So versatile, so delicious.
So satisfying.
And then a Tater Tot might be
one of the finest expressions of potato.
People say Tater Tots to
mean all different brands,
but technically Tater Tot is a trademark
of Ore-Ida Potato Company.
A Tater Tot is shredded potato.
I don't really know.
I don't know how they make them.
But they're somehow
bound together and fried
in little tiny nuggets.
They're so good.
I mean, they look the same frozen.
So that kind of makes me feel like
in the Tater Tot factory,
they're more par-fried.
But they also at the same
time hold together so well.
They're also uniform.
They're just so good.
It's like the perfect
amount of crispy outside,
crunchy soft kind of creamy inside.
They're just, I really wanna eat some.
Can I go get some ketchup?
I cannot eat these without Heinz ketchup.
I love ketchup so much.
They're perfect.
They're perfect.
It cannot be improved upon.
We should just, everyone
take a plate and go home.
- What are you doing?
- [Claire] Tots.
Tater Tots.
Greatest food ever created.
- Yeah, agree.
- Like I could probably eat in one sitting
maybe like 45 Tater Tots.
They're so good.
- So fascinated.
It's like these weird pebbles
of seemingly like par-steamed potatoes
that then have almost like
this slurry around them.
- I know.
Whatever the binding is is incredible.
What's more delightful
than a fried potato?
- Nothing.
- Nothing.
- You're gonna nail this in two days.
- Ooh, you think so?
- Yeah.
- All right.
- Oh, Tater Tot casserole?
- What is the casserole,
and then you just put
Tater Tots on top?
- I think it's traditionally
beef, frozen mixed vegetables,
and cream of mushroom soup,
but then you top it with Tater Tots.
- Oh really?
- But we could do all scratch.
- If you make the filling.
- [Sohla] Yeah, I can do that.
- Is that a deal?
- Yeah.
- Okay.
Ooh, I love this idea.
So you can see that there are
distinct shreds of potato,
and a really thin, even, golden crust.
I think barrel is a good
word to describe the shape.
They are kind of cylinders,
but the cylinders
actually seem to have a little
bit of dimension to them,
like there's sort of a flat side.
It's not a totally round cross-section,
if that makes sense.
I'm gonna clear this off
because it's too annoying
to reach around these bags to eat them.
- You made these?
- No.
We started like five minutes ago.
- Oh, I don't know.
- These are original.
The two plates is throwing
every single person off.
- Here's what's so wonderful about Tots.
There's a whole world inside.
There's a lot of textural variants.
- Yes.
- On the inside of the Tot.
You know I go look for
Tots almost every day.
- Daily.
- In the cafeteria.
- Mm-hmm.
Potatoes are fascinating.
- They're so cool.
So weird.
- I know.
Tots.
I'm gonna take some measurements.
The length is three centimeters.
The diameter in one
direction is 2.1 centimeters.
So we're just gonna
call it two centimeters.
Um.
That's it.
That's the only dimensions, right?
I wanna try taking one apart
and separating out some of the pieces
to get an idea of particle size.
There's pieces like this
that are a larger piece
and then there's also this size,
which is much, much smaller.
I feel like the pieces are shaggy
so that they're not smooth,
like if you were to look at this up close
it would have a very irregular texture.
You can sort of see
that there's a coating.
The coating, it is a very sealed exterior.
Time for my favorite part,
reading the ingredients.
Potatoes, vegetable oil
blend, soybean and cottonseed,
salt, yellow corn flour,
dextrose, sodium acid,
pyrophosphate, parenthesis
to retain natural color
closed parenthesis, dehydrated onion,
sodium acid sulfate, natural flavor.
All right, there's a lot
of interesting stuff there.
It's fascinating to me
that there are things
that I've never heard of
that we haven't yet seen in Gourmet Makes.
We've never had any kind of compound
start with the prefix pyro.
It's to retain the color.
Potatoes, when you grate them,
I think it's an enzyme.
There's an enzyme in them
that immediately makes them
start to turn brown, so
makes sense that they're
putting something in
here to prevent browning.
I would love to find out
more about how they're made.
We're gonna go over to the computer
and do a little bit of research.
Go long, Dan.
No, I'm just kidding.
No, no don't.
No don't.
I'm gonna hit the light.
- [Dan] Let's do it.
- [Man] Do it!
- [laughing] That's too
close to the computer.
What if I hit the light?
No, don't!
I thought you were throwing it back at me.
What?
- [Man] Nice.
- [Claire] [laughing] Is
the internet not working?
Oh.
- [Man] Oh, you need that.
- Wifi.
There we go.
Tater Tots, or just Tots, created in 1953
when Ora-Ida founders
were trying to figure out
what to do with leftover
slivers of cut up potatoes.
They chopped up the slivers, okay chopped,
added flour and seasoning,
then pushed the mash
through holes and sliced off
pieces of the extruded
mixture, thus Tots were born.
All right.
I mean, that pretty much
tells me how it's made.
- [Announcer] Tater Tots
have appeared on the menus
of some of the finest
restaurants in the country.
- [Claire] Oh, look at those.
- [Announcer] Like Chef David Kinch's
three Michelin star-rated Manresa
in Los Gatos California.
- Manresa.
- I'm making fancy Tater Tots.
Sometimes they're called
pommes paillasson.
- Okay, so that's David
Kinch, famous chef.
And that is the potato preparation
that I was gonna make.
He said pommes paillasson, I think
and I don't really know how to spell that
so I'll have to do some research.
But this is, this is
good stuff right here.
Okay, paillasson that's what he's saying.
David Kinch, pommes paillasson.
So let's see this.
[upbeat music]
Sorry, that's really loud.
- The fancy name is pommes paillasson.
It'll remind you of Tater Tots.
For this I'm just using
regular russet potatoes.
- [Dan] This feels like cheating.
- The next thing I'm gonna do
is grate the potatoes.
- Oh well.
So he is poaching raw potato in duck fat.
And then the starches are coming out
so that they get that gummy texture.
- Pommes paillasson.
Tater Tots on steroids.
- Some people say that that was cheating,
but I don't think so.
I like the idea of approaching Tater Tots
using sort of a classic method
based on sound potato cookery.
If that works, I think it
could be a really neat way
to recreate a classic Ora-Ida Tater Tot.
- [Dan] Are you gonna feel refreshed
when you get back from vacation?
- I'm going on vacation.
I'm hoping to come back
not sleep deprived,
having read several books,
having not looked at my phone
or computer for a week, and just
completely born again.
[upbeat music]
Vacation's so great.
I hadn't taken a vacation in so long.
You know, you have to
really make it a priority,
a vacation, otherwise you'll never do it.
That was my problem.
I feel great.
I wanna go back.
Take me back.
I remember where we left off.
So I can kind of get started right away.
[upbeat music]
I'm gonna go for it, I think.
The whole way through.
David Kinch cooked his
potatoes in duck fat.
I'm just gonna use oil.
The potatoes are in water
because that prevents oxidation
so they don't brown.
And Rhoda's helping me
put together the shredder
on the food processor.
There we go.
I'm only using oversized kitchen
tools today, I've decided.
Does it make me look very small
because it's so big?
So this is, you take the blade out
and it has this little connector piece
that goes down where the blade connects
and this disc spins, and it's
a really super fast shredder.
By the way, I feel like
I should say something
about potatoes, which
are that potatoes are
one of my favorite foods,
and in fact, in my mind,
one of the most amazing
ingredients you could possibly work with.
So I think after I shred
them, I'm going to pulse them
with the blade in the food
processor to break them up
a little bit and leave some larger,
and then get some into
smaller, finer bits.
They're amazing.
And they're so delicious.
And they get crispy, and they're creamy,
and fluffy, you can puree
them, you can fry them,
you can roast them.
They're so good.
I'm gonna put the potatoes
directly into the oil
so they don't continue to oxidize.
Maybe a tiny bit of garlic
to make it a little more savory.
Okay, so I'm gonna go grab some rosemary
because it tastes so good.
I think that actually that particle size
looks pretty good.
I'm not really basing that on any
actual firsthand knowledge.
Okay, so I'm gonna get this on the burner.
French fried potatoes, roasted potatoes,
boiled potatoes, I love
a boiled potato so much.
It doesn't look like much,
but things are happening.
There's little kind of
slow, fine bubbles happening
all around, and the texture
of the potatoes is changing.
You can see that they're
going translucent.
The French really do great
things with potatoes.
They do pommes Boulanger.
that's a classic one.
And what I remember from the video
is that I do want to actually
fully cook the potato.
I maybe just want it to
have the tiniest hint
of that kind of raw starchy texture.
I kind of feel like
maybe it's almost done.
There's roasted potatoes,
there's boiled potatoes,
which I love, boiled potatoes,
parsley potatoes, just
like peeled, boiled,
creamy potatoes, with
butter and parsley and salt.
It's so good.
Baked potato, French fries.
I'm gonna check on the
done-ness of the potatoes.
It is super gummy.
Considering there was no
salt, tastes pretty good.
You can see how they are clumping together
because they are just so sticky.
In fact, much stickier than
I imagined they would be.
- Are you gonna try and
introduce another dip
to the equation?
- I hadn't thought about it actually.
- Oh, you know what is amazing?
There's this place in Philly
called Chickie & Pete's.
- Uh-huh.
- And they do crab fries,
but they do it with a
white cheese dipping sauce
that's like American cheese, cheddar,
and maybe Monterey Jack.
I don't want to speak for them.
- Okay.
- I don't know what their
proprietary blend is.
- Okay.
- But it's so good.
- Will you look into it--
- I'll look into it.
- And tell me what's in it?
- Yeah.
- Okay.
Thanks Delaney.
Okay, these are gonna continue to drain.
They've already released
a fair amount of oil.
And in the meantime, I'm gonna pluck out
the garlic and stuff.
The garlic is just there
for flavoring the oil.
It's not gonna be in the Tots.
- Claire.
- Oh, what's in it?
- In the 45 seconds
since I've last seen you.
- Uh-huh.
- I've just read an article
about how this person
went on a mission to find out
what the cheese sauce was.
It's just American cheese
and water to thin it out.
- What?
- Melted American cheese and water.
- Wow.
Love a recipe like that.
It's one ingredient.
Ooh, like look at it.
It's all just one big
ball of sticky potato.
- [Dan] Looks like you
made a big matzo ball.
[Claire laughs]
- Wow, I thought it was
gonna be maybe a challenge
to get it to hold, but
it's really so sticky.
I don't want to shock anyone
with the amount of salt
that I'm gonna use, but
I wanna be generous.
- Oh my god, that already
looks like a Tater Tot.
I'm excited.
- I'm excited too.
- They got me some beef.
We're gonna make casserole.
- What kind of casserole?
- Tater Tot casserole.
- Oh my god, that kind of casserole.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay.
Okay, cool.
[Sohla laughs]
- You're gonna be ready before the beef.
This is gonna be a one day Gourmet Makes.
- Sohla, you're gonna jinx it.
- No, man.
- Oh my god.
Well you can say it.
I can't say it.
- It's basically perfect already.
Dan, did you get a good look in here?
- Oh, thanks.
I'm gonna cut this into a grid
and then I'll have little rectangles.
I'll just have to wait and
see what the texture's like
after they chill.
This is gonna go into the fridge.
Ooh.
Just shocked myself.
- So I'm working on my job
while also trying to make
some Tater Tot casserole.
I've got some short ribs over here.
I'm gonna sear it in here
and then de-glaze with some beer.
It's gonna get a bunch
of cremini mushrooms.
So these guys are gonna
sear up, get nice and brown.
Traditionally, Tater Tot casserole
is cream of mushroom soup and ground beef,
so we're stepping it up a little.
It's gourmet Tater Tot casserole.
- The mixture is cool,
I would say it's cooled.
It's super firm.
One thing that I'm not
totally pleased about
is the color, because the inside of a Tot
is pretty bright white, and these potatoes
have started to take on a gray tone.
I kind of thought after
coming out of the oil,
they would all be so coated
that they weren't gonna further oxidize,
but it seems like they are.
Really never seen anything like it.
It's really neat.
It kind of has like a wobble,
and it's really solid.
Like, it springs back.
I'm wondering if I'm gonna
have a hard time forming it,
but let's see.
I'm gonna cut it into a grid,
roughly Tater Tot size.
It seems like I'll get
a pretty even number
out of all of these.
Now that I've cut it into portions,
I'll weigh each portion,
and then I'll have
an easier time forming them,
because it'll all be uniform.
[jazzy drumming music]
Just feel like there's
gotta be a quicker way
to get these into nice, even cylinders.
It's still not quite long enough.
- [Gaby] What is that?
- What?
- That's potato?
- It's potato.
- The color's--
- [Claire] Yeah, I know.
- It's not really enticing.
I wonder what they put those to keep them.
- Oh, it's sodium acid pyrophosphate.
- Sure, I have some in my pocket.
Why don't you use it?
- Yeah.
Every kitchen has some of that.
- I'm sure they're delicious.
- Look, I'm just gonna
get through this test,
I'll deal with the color later.
I need a form.
This is annoying.
I don't want to do this anymore.
I don't know what I'm looking for.
I'm just trying to see what we have
to spark some kind of an idea.
I'm hungry.
I think it's time for lunch.
Do we have funnels?
- Funnels?
- [Claire] Yeah.
- I do.
- [Claire] I won't destroy it.
- Okay.
[gasps]
- Can I--
- Yes, yes, yes.
- Can I hold onto it for a second?
- But don't destroy it, right?
- No, I promise.
- Right?
- I promise.
- Okay.
- I think that's a good size.
The only thing is I wish
it was more cylindrical.
It's kind of tapered.
I also do kind of want to destroy it
even though I just told Gaby I wouldn't.
- [Gaby] What about a cookie cutter?
- Yes.
Why didn't I think about that?
- [Gaby] I don't know,
because you want to make it.
- I want to make it hard?
- [Gaby] You wanted to make it real, yes.
[jazzy music]
I just thought of something.
- [Claire] What?
- [Gaby] An apple corer.
- Gaby, you're so smart.
- [Gaby] Sometimes.
- No, all the time.
Truly.
I'm gonna test if this is the right size.
It's a little bit narrow,
but I think it's gonna work.
I think this is like kind of perfect.
So I'm gonna go back to the
pieces that I already formed.
I wish that I had some kind of piston
to push it through.
Gaby, where'd you put the other one?
Okay, thank you.
I wanted to, I have, this is,
I need to destroy this.
[jazzy music]
Oh no, I don't think it's gonna work.
Just bend it back and pretend
like nothing ever happened.
No one say anything.
It's fine.
- [Gaby] Did it work?
- No, it's okay.
Don't tell anyone.
Oh, I have an idea.
I already used this once today.
Let me just see if I can do this
without sawing off a piece.
No, I can't quite.
I need the saw.
Gaby, do we have a handsaw?
- Oh wait, we have all
this new equipment we got!
Oh my god, Claire you weren't here.
Come!
Ta-da!
- Whoa!
- [Gaby] One day every
brand sent us so much stuff.
- Wow.
- We can build a house.
- If anyone's watching
who's in the tool industry,
we need new tools.
Look at this thing.
This thing's older than Claire.
Look at this battery.
They don't even make this thing anymore.
- Why isn't this going on?
I broke it.
[sighs]
What's happening here.
A-ha.
Okay.
Oh, hi.
- What up?
- Delaney, I need your help.
- Well, I need your help.
- Really?
With what?
- Yeah.
Well, I was just gonna ask you
what you thought of this.
- Oh my god, that sounds fun.
I'll try it.
- [Dan] Yeah, definitely get intoxicated
before using the saw.
[Claire laughing]
- Perfect.
- It's a shandy.
- Oh, it's basically water.
Okay, it's delightful.
I want more lime.
- Okay, cool.
- Wait, don't go anywhere.
- I'm not, I'm just
gonna put it over here.
- Okay.
So I'm gonna tighten this,
and then clamp.
Just keep going.
- There has to be a better way to do that.
- I'm a lefty, by the way.
Oh my god, this is gonna be so easy.
Okay.
Ah!
Ah!
That was so fun and easy.
- It's so fun.
Let's just cut some more (beeping right?
- I think this is like my thing now.
Now that I tightened
this, how do I get it off?
- You just spin it the other way.
- I know, but it's like really--
- You got it.
- I got it, I got it.
- There's a rhyme about it.
- No, I know but here's the thing.
I've said this many times.
It goes in a circle.
There's no left or right.
It's clockwise counterclockwise.
[laughing] Thank you.
- Righty tighty, lefty loosey.
- I know.
I never understood that, to be honest.
- What do you mean?
It's like the best thing ever.
- [laughing] I don't--
- Righty tighty.
- I don't want this on the camera.
- Spin it right.
- But wait--
- If I'm turning this to my left,
that's your right.
- But start from there.
Start from there.
- Right, which is your left,
but I'm saying no one would ever start
from the bottom.
- But I'm saying that I would.
- You know, Claire.
You do a lot of things that
other people might not do.
- So you form them in here, right?
- Okay.
- And you give it like a little
tamp, tamp, tamp.
And then.
It's brilliant.
- Brilliant is subjective
in this situation.
- But you agree.
- Yes.
- Right.
[jazzy music]
This gets loaded into,
press, press, press,
and then I'm gonna just keep forming,
one at a time, in a little bit
of an assembly line.
- Oh my god, that worked out perfect!
- I know!
- What?
[jazzy music]
- The oil's at 340.
I'm gonna do have of
this batch, no coating.
Just gonna drop these guys in.
Aye-aye-aye, they're all
sticking to the bottom.
Oh, they stuck so bad.
Are they all just falling apart now?
Oh my god, they're sticking to each other.
They're sticking to the spoon.
These have completely fused together
into one Frankentot.
Okay, problem number one.
They are so sticky that they stick
to the bottom of the pot,
and they stick to each other.
So that's not great.
Two, they are getting kind
of grayer by the minute.
That's not super appealing.
Three is getting kind of craggy.
And then it's getting
really nice crispy bits,
but they're just kind of like not getting
as uniformly golden.
Although I guess Tater Tots themselves
aren't super uniform either.
But that's why I feel like I'm gonna need
some kind of a coating.
I think it will help to seal the potato.
The potato gets really crispy,
but it retains some of
that gumminess in the Tot
that's not totally appealing.
One positive thing is
that it has distinct bits
which you can see.
They just need to be less gummy.
I'm wondering if I worked
the mixture too much.
So I'm gonna take a little potato starch
and dust some of the
Tots in the potato starch
to kind of seal everything.
I'm not quite sure how much to add.
I might have to drop them in one at a time
and keep them moving until
they're set on the outside.
- [Dan] Can I say something
without you getting offended?
- [Claire] What?
- There was an unpleasant aftertaste
in the one I had.
- What's the aftertaste?
- [Dan] My tongue feels dry.
- [Man] Yeah, I need a lot of water.
- [Dan] I think I'm dying.
[all laughing]
- Did I poison you guys?
Did I mean to?
Maybe not.
Maybe I did.
So I'm just kind of agitating it.
Really hoping that it doesn't fall apart.
Actually it does seem
to be much less sticky.
Oh, they stuck together.
[giggles]
Oh no.
I'm gonna take this guy out.
This was the first one I added.
You can see that the surface itself
is rather pale, and that
the ends are super golden.
This seems like an improvement
if they're less sticky
and they're holding their shape.
They look like perfect little cylinders.
This guy looks great.
Look at the Tots!
They're so cute.
They held together extremely well.
The surface stayed smooth.
They seem very crispy.
Mm.
I think I'm really on the right track
with the potato starch on the outside.
The two main issues now
are color and texture
of the potato and the interior.
And I have some thoughts about that.
Wait, I'm so worried
about this aftertaste.
- [Dan] Yeah, you gotta
taste one of these.
- The crew ate the first batch,
and apparently there was a lot of talk
about having an issue
with dry mouth afterwards.
And I'm a little freaked out by it.
I mean, I just ate one and we'll see.
I think it's that I worked
that potato mixture so much.
There's just so much
starch that was released
from the potatoes that, like,
that starch in your mouth is,
I don't really know what's happening,
but I think it's giving everyone
that very uncomfortable dry mouth effect.
Here's my plan.
Because I want a mixture
that has a fluffier
potato texture, and not so much gumminess,
I'm gonna do the same
thing, but only with half
the amount of potatoes,
and then substitute in
the other half with like
a boiled, grated potato
to get some of that fluffy texture in
and hopefully get a
best of both worlds mix.
I don't know if I have to
poke holes if I'm boiling,
but I'll just poke a couple.
These potatoes are done.
They're basically fully
cooked all the way through.
These are gonna go into
the fridge overnight,
and then in the morning,
I'm going to grate them
and do that whole oil poaching step again
with fresh potatoes.
I have a relatively
high level of confidence
that the next batch, given
the learning from today,
will be successful.
[upbeat jazzy music]
I guess the first thing
I'll do is grate the potato
that I cooked yesterday
that's in the fridge
and is cold.
No, no.
Not while I'm holding coffee.
Okay.
All right.
[jazzy music]
These are the potatoes I
boiled yesterday until tender,
and they chilled overnight.
They're very firm, even
though they're cooked
all the way through.
Oops.
Looks like grated cheese.
The shreds yesterday
were kind of translucent
and these are opaque, and you can see
they're really fluffy.
I'm gonna do the same
thing I did yesterday
which is just pulse the shreds.
And I'm going to keep
this mixture separate
from the poached mixture, and
then I'll add them together
to kind of get the
consistency that I want.
I will set this aside.
Now I'm gonna move onto the
poached, shredded potato,
and I have oil there from
yesterday that was strained.
I'm gonna add more oil to it,
and also add aromatics.
Oh, Dan.
Oh my god, Dan.
No, it fell on the floor.
It rolled under it.
Can I have another one.
Thank you.
I love peeling potato.
Ow!
I have not touched one
thing in this kitchen
over the last two days
that has not shocked me.
That's so annoying.
There's some weird current.
Ow!
[groans]
[all laughing]
God, everything's metal.
The goal here is to
reduce enzymatic browning
that happens when you cut raw potato.
And so I'm going to add ice
cubes and white vinegar,
because colder water and acidulated water
will help prevent that from happening.
All right, so these shreds
are gonna immediately
go back in the water,
because they'll start
browning immediately.
I'm gonna transfer about
half of this mixture
to the food processor.
And the next step will be
wringing out the potato
and transferring it
to the oil immediately.
And this is a method for
making potato latkes.
I don't know why I
didn't do this yesterday.
But you squeeze out as
much of the moisture
from the potatoes as possible,
and it just increases crispiness
and improves texture also.
And then you'll see,
so I have much, much drier pieces.
And now directly into the oil.
So theoretically it should not brown.
Before I get these on the stove,
I'm gonna do one quick step,
which is pour off a lot of this water
and then strain it to
get any potato bits out,
and then I'm gonna let
this mixture sit and settle
because there's a ton
of starch in this bowl,
and then when it comes time
to mix the potato mixture
for the filing, I'm gonna
add the starch back in.
That will help bind everything.
I decided that I should
look up the actual recipe
of pommes paillasson
that I watched the video
of David Kinch demonstrating.
And I'm glad I did, because
it had some important
information I ignored the first time.
The first piece of
information is that the oil
should be right around 200 Fahrenheit,
so you can see, I've kept
it within a couple degrees
on either side of 200.
The other piece of information was that
the potato should be fully
cooked almost to the point
of falling apart.
I fell short of that end point yesterday.
So I'm just gonna give these a taste.
These have been in here
for a little while.
I feel like they're fully cooked.
Now I'm gonna get these out of the oil.
I think it looks less gray than yesterday.
So now I'm gonna season them generously,
and this one is poached in oil
and then this one is grated boiled potato
and I'm going to eyeball
it until I get something
that looks like a good mix
that still binds to itself,
and I can also add some
of this potato starch
to the mixture as well.
I'm kind of starting with something
that looks a little 50-50.
This is like basically a slurry,
a starch slurry.
I actually get a lot
of the rosemary garlic.
It's pretty tasty.
All right, back into the fridge
until this is actually nice and cold
and has a chance to just set.
I'm going to turn my oil
on and get up to 350,
and then I'm going to form
maybe three or four Tots.
Oh my god, I love them.
Throw them into the oil,
see what happens.
I feel like they're done.
- [Alex] They do look a
little ghostly on the outsid.e
- Oh, just say good things.
- They look like beautiful ghosts.
- They look like little beautiful nuggets.
Look at how similar they are in size.
Don't they look good?
- Pretty damn close.
- Hot.
- Hot.
I actually really taste rosemary.
- It's like a lot of rosemary.
- Too salty?
- I don't know about too salty,
but the rosemary is pretty overpowering.
- Overpowering?
- I don't know if, It's a lot.
- Delaney.
That's not the answer I was looking for.
This was one of those--
- It really tastes like rosemary.
- You nailed it, don't change anything.
That's more of what I was going for.
- What's in there?
- Garlic and rosemary.
Too much?
No!
You guys.
- [Alex] It's too much rosemary.
- No!
[emotional piano music]
I actually get a lot
of the rosemary garlic.
It's pretty tasty.
- [Sohla] You're millimeters
away from perfection!
- [Alex] You're on the doorstep.
- [Sohla] You can't stop now.
- But I just really,
I really don't want to
re-poach the potatoes.
It takes so long.
- Perfection takes as long as it takes.
- Edit it all out.
- Could we lie to people,
say you did it again.
[giggling]
Is there like anything
else going on there?
- Why, what do you want?
You want--
- No, there's a flavor, an aftertaste,
that I don't enjoy.
- [Claire] Actually, can
I just say something?
- I--
- [Claire] Oh.
- Was gonna say something
else about that, too.
But maybe I won't.
- What is the aftertaste?
- What, no you can't.
Wait, now you have to--
- It's like almost fishy?
[emotional piano music]
- What is that from?
- [Alex] What is the fishiness?
- [Sohla] Oh, it's the fryer oil.
- Oh it's, it's--
- [Alex] It might be the oil.
- Yeah, it's canola.
- [Sohla] Canola gets weird.
- [Alex] Yeah.
- All right.
And I'm reusing it from yesterday.
- That's what it is.
- Okay.
I'll switch, I'll do fresh oil.
Delaney, I just want,
I want you to make that cheese sauce.
- Yes!
- [Claire] Sauce you
told me about yesterday.
- I don't know if I have
time to do it today, though.
- I think you have time.
- If American cheese
is in the test kitchen,
I will absolutely make it.
- Okay.
- [Sohla] I'll prepare my casserole base.
- Oh, right.
Oh damn, okay.
I forgot about that.
I can't believe I forgot.
- Tater Tot casserole!
Claire!
- I know.
- I've been working on it--
- I'm sorry.
- For days!
- But Sohla, can you tell
me how many I'm gonna need?
- What is that?
- It's however--
- I don't think I agree
with him about the rosemary.
I have an idea though.
If I get shocked by this,
I'll be really upset.
Ah.
God.
Damn it.
Only the oil poached
has the rosemary flavor
added to it, so my idea is just to add
more of the boiled potato,
which has that fluffier,
nicer texture anyway.
And my hope is just that
it continues to bind
and be formable.
[jazzy drumming music]
I also refreshed the oil over there.
So far it seems to be
holding together well.
I feel a little relieved.
I'm just gonna form them until
the oil is ready, I guess.
And I'm going to do a lighter
coating of potato starch.
Oh, well.
I thought I was going to.
Take them out.
- [Dan] Best ones yet?
- So here are the Tots.
I think that this is the best batch yet.
Also, one thing we haven't remarked upon,
they're not gray, which is good.
I feel very good about this.
I feel good about
one, the density,
sort of how tightly packed
the potato particles are.
Two, the presence of discrete potato bits,
three, the different sizes of the discrete
bits of potato bits,
and four, the amount of coating
on the outside of the Tot.
Mm, very tender.
In my mind, it's not the least
bit overpoweringly rosemary.
In fact, I don't think you
would know it was there.
Oh, Sohla.
You don't get a lot of the rosemary.
Better, right?
- It's a Tot.
- What happened is what usually happens,
which is, I'm glad that I made it again.
Thank you for pushing me to do that.
I think this is the final version.
I'm happy with basically
every aspect of it.
I'm gonna just keep forming
and frying in batches
until I've made some
critical mass of Tater Tots.
- What's your plan?
You're doing a full bag?
- I'm gonna go with as many as it takes
until I finish today.
[jazzy music]
Thanks to Sohla's help
and encouraging words
we actually portioned and
formed the full potato mixture.
This guy was hidden
behind the thermometer.
Got a little dark.
Took on a little bit of color,
took it pretty far.
I'm gonna put these in
the freezer, uncovered,
and then before I leave
tonight I will cover them
because I don't want to
trap any amount of steam
that's left in these,
because it will create
a soggy texture.
I don't believe in making homemade ketchup
because Heinz is perfect.
But I will make a homemade mayo
even though there's lots of
great store-bought mayo also.
Delaney's gonna do cheese sauce.
I can do a buffalo sauce.
[jazzy music]
But I'm just making kind
of a traditional mayonnaise
with egg yolk, oil,
and then I'll add a
little garlic and lemon
to season it.
It is absolutely delicious.
We'll come back tomorrow.
I feel like it'll be smooth sailing
from here on out.
I made like a lot of Tater Tots.
So I would consider this successful.
[jazzy music]
Oh my god, casserole.
I forgot about casserole.
Sohla?
Casserole.
Is it happening?
- Yeah.
- How much time do you need?
- I'm ready.
- You're ready?
All right, so Sohla's gonna do casserole.
I'm going to cook the
remaining Tater Tots two ways,
one baked, one deep fried,
and then we're gonna dip and taste,
and then we go home,
because today's Friday.
Right?
- [Dan] No.
- I might make a little
buffalo dipping sauce
which is just Frank's Red Hot,
and butter.
Oh, I knew that was coming.
Okay.
Maybe I'll work on the
one-handed catch going forward.
You know?
Advanced skills.
[jazzy drumming music]
I have one stick of butter
which is a half cup,
a half cup of Frank's.
To my knowledge, buffalo sauce is just
those two things mixed together,
so that's what I'm gonna do.
Oh, it smells so good.
- Does it smell so good?
- Oh, you got a haircut!
- This morning.
- Wow.
- Literally like half an hour ago.
- You look great.
You got a job to do.
- I know, I'm gonna make my cheese sauce.
- [Claire] Okay, great.
- It's just white American cheese.
Cutting it into roughly inch and a half
by inch and a half cubes.
We're gonna start with eight ounces
and see if the water
to cheese ratio works.
The water looks, let's
put it one way, gross.
Ah, it's getting pretty white.
Old cheese water.
It smells like cheese.
That's all that it smells like
- [Claire] That looks so good.
- It looks really good.
- [Claire] Good consistency.
- [Alex] And the consistency
now is nice, yeah.
- [Claire] Yeah.
- [Alex] Needs a little bit of salt,
little bit of garlic.
- Oh my god, it looks so good.
- [Sohla] You can taste it.
- All right, can I--
- Oh yeah.
- Can I grab this?
Okay.
- [Alex] That is so good, Sohla.
- [Claire] When did Sohla even make this?
- I don't know.
Sohla hasn't slept in 18 days.
- Yeah, seriously.
All right, so I'm gonna fill this guy.
So this is Sohla's short
rib and mushroom casserole
a la stroganoff.
Can we get a bag of Tots?
Delaney, he's gonna throw it at you.
We'll do the skillet with Ora-Ida,
and we're gonna do the
baking dish with homemade.
My vision is neat rows.
Oh well.
- Wow.
Really nice work.
I really like how this one,
it's like a full collaboration.
- Yeah.
I did just as much work as Claire.
- Excellent.
Now I'm gonna deep fry,
and we're gonna taste
just the Tots on their own.
[jazzy drumming music]
They look great.
They look like they got super crispy.
And now I'm gonna pour
out my dipping sauces.
I'm gonna start with ketchup.
Then buffalo.
Aioli.
Delaney, you ready there with the cheese?
Oh, that looks so good.
- What's in it?
- Water and American cheese.
- You really are a Philly guy, aren't you?
- Little bit of garlic
powder, little bit of salt.
- The garlic powder makes it gourmet.
- Yeah.
- Yeah.
- All right, ready guys?
I'm gonna try it with aioli.
- Cool.
- Are you gonna do cheese sauce?
- Yeah, I feel like--
- Okay.
- Can I do aioli as well?
- Yeah, we can do both.
I mean, we can try multiple.
- Claire, those.
Those are very good.
- They're really soft on the inside.
- [Andy] I like that they don't fall apart
like typical Tater Tots.
- [Claire] What a lovely interior.
Fluffy, right?
And not dense, like not so compact.
- I'm not even gonna try it, I'm sorry.
- American cheese is not my thing.
[laughing]
But it's really good.
But like, I only want to eat one of it.
- The ketchup is so good.
- I know, I love the ketchup.
- Sue.
- You wanna try a Tater Tot?
- Ooh!
- Yeah, okay.
Classic.
- Yup.
- Oh.
Yeah, Claire.
- Tater Tot.
- Like Ore-Ida.
- Oh my god, Amiel's here?
This is the best day ever.
Amiel.
- We made Tater Tots
for out Valentine's Day.
Oh, these look perfect!
- When you say you made Tater Tots,
what do you mean?
- Well, we like purchased them.
Oh.
Nailed it.
- Thank you.
Do you want any of the dipping sauces?
- Of course I want the dipping sauces.
- Claire, also they're looking
pretty close over here.
- Okay, let's pull those.
Oh my god.
- [Alex] Oh, mama!
- [Amiel] I cannot believe this.
- [Claire] Sohla made the filling.
We can't take credit.
- [Sohla] That's like, you
gotta decorate with ketchup.
- [Claire] Oh man.
- [Amiel] The shape of these
is so perfect and so uniform.
- [Claire] Sohla, I think
you should do the honors.
- [Sohla] Oh boy, how's that?
- This looks and smells
so good.
- So good.
- Unbelievable.
Is it insanely hot still?
- No.
The filling is delicious.
- Mm!
- Mm.
- We did it!
Mm.
- Mm.
- Mm!
- I'm gonna have some ketchup.
- This I feel like is an
appropriate serving size.
- Yeah.
[all laughing]
- It's very rich.
Very delicious.
Ah.
Thanks Sohla, you really.
Let's collab on every single
other Gourmet Makes after this.
Would anyone like to try?
Casserole.
- The Tots?
Oh.
- The casserole?
Oh my god.
- Pretty good, right?
- So good.
- It's really good.
- This one was fun.
I should just work with Sohla
on every single project.
- You're done!
- It's like beef stroganoff
meets shepherd's pie.
- Uh-huh.
- Yeah.
- Meets Tater Tots.
I'm gonna steal one.
- Cheese sauce, this is aioli?
- [Claire] Yeah.
- Hell yeah.
- I like how brown these guys.
- Alex, thanks for your help on this.
- Hey, you're welcome.
- It was fun, right?
- It was a lot of fun.
- Tater Tots was a really fun episode.
I like working with a raw
ingredient like potato.
Potatoes are amazing.
I love potatoes.
This is a summary of the last four days.
It's nice when skills in Gourmet Makes
are kind of generalizable
and have applications
outside of just the episode.
I wouldn't necessarily sit there
and form these Tater Tots again,
but I would definitely make
Sohla's Tater Tot casserole
again for sure.
It's delicious.
[jazzy music]
Here's how you make gourmet Tater Tots.
Scrub and prick two medium
russet potatoes all over.
Cook in a large pot of boiling water
just until firm but tender.
Remove the potatoes from the water
and let cool completely
in the refrigerator.
Peel the potatoes and pass
through the large shredding disc
of the food processor.
Working in batches,
pulse the shredded potato
with the blade of the food processor
to break up the shreds.
Transfer the mixture to a large bowl
and set aside.
Peel two medium russet potatoes
and hold in a large bowl
of ice water spiked with two tablespoons
of distilled white vinegar.
Working one potato at a time,
shred in the food processor
and transfer the shredded potato
back into the bowl of acidulated water.
Switch to the blade,
and working in batches
pulse the raw shredded potato
to break up the shreds.
Transfer back to the water.
Using a spider, transfer the raw potato
in small batches to a clean kitchen towel.
Fold up the ends and wring out the potato
as firmly as possible
to squeeze out the water
transfer the dry shreds
to a large saucepan
filled halfway with vegetable oil.
Add a few garlic cloves
and a sprig of rosemary
to the oil and set the
saucepan over medium low heat.
Cook the potatoes at
200 degrees Fahrenheit
stirring often until the shreds are tender
and almost falling apart,
then drain immediately and
allow all the excess oil
to drip off.
Pluck out the garlic and
rosemary and discard.
Scatter the shreds on
a lined baking sheet,
cover loosely, and chill until cold.
When the poached potato is
cold, make a 50-50 mixture
of the poached and boiled shredded potato.
Pour of the acidulated
water until all that's left
is the thick potato starch
that's settled to the bottom
and add the starch back
to the potato mixture.
Season the mixture with salt.
Divide the mixture into six gram portions.
Pack the portions into
the end of an apple corer
and use the handle of a large wooden spoon
to pack the mixture firmly into the corer
to form a neat, smooth, tight barrel.
Press out the potato barrel
onto a lined baking sheet
and repeat until you've
formed all the portions
into Tot shapes.
Places the Tots inside a large sieve
and dust with potato starch,
moving the Tots around
so they're evenly coated
and dusting off the excess.
Fry the Tots in 350 degree vegetable oil
until deep golden brown and crispy,
then drain on paper towels
and season with salt.
Freeze solid and fry again until crispy
then serve with aioli and ketchup.
Gallop potatoes, potato
gratin, twice baked.
There's just, I can't believe
I didn't talk about this
on day one, that I just love potato.
There's also so many varieties of potato.
There's purple potato.
There's fingerling, red skin.
- [Dan] We did that.
- We already talked about this?
