Batata Harra
Fried potato cubes tossed off the heat with a raw paste of garlic, coriander and chilli. The point is that the garlic never really cooks: it hits hot potato and goes fragrant rather than sweet.
Photograph credit: batara harra by secretlondon123 · CC BY-SA 2.0 · Flickr · this resized copy is shared under the same licence
Making Batata Harra Ahead
Best within the hour. Refrigerated for 2 days; revive in a 220°C / 430°F oven for 10 minutes rather than the microwave, which softens the crust.
Batata Harra: The Method
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Rinse the potato cubes in cold water until it runs clear, then dry them thoroughly on a tea towel. Any water left on them will steam rather than fry.
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Heat 5 tbsp oil in a large frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the potatoes in a single layer and season with the salt.
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Fry 25 to 30 minutes, turning every 5 minutes or so, until every face is crisp and deep gold. Resist stirring more often than that — a crust needs contact time to form.
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While they fry, pound or blitz the garlic, coriander, Aleppo pepper, ground coriander, lemon, 2 tbsp oil and salt to a rough green paste.
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Take the pan off the heat completely. Wait 30 seconds for the sizzle to die down.
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Add the paste and toss hard for 20 seconds. It should hiss and go intensely fragrant without frying.
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Serve straight away, while the crust is still crisp under the dressing.
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A Few Pointers
- Dry the potatoes properly. Wet cubes steam instead of frying.
- The paste goes in off the heat. Cooked garlic is a different dish.
- Turn every 5 minutes, not constantly. Crust needs contact.
Some Background
Everything here is about keeping the garlic raw. Batata harra made by frying garlic first tastes of roast garlic — pleasant, and not this dish. The paste goes into the pan after the heat is off, so it cooks only in the residual warmth of the potatoes and keeps its edge. The second rule is drying the potatoes: cubes that go into oil wet steam themselves soft, and the whole texture depends on a crust that can survive being tossed in a wet dressing.
Serving Ideas
Grilled chicken · Hummus Beiruti · A bowl of labneh
If You're Missing Something
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Nutrition per Serving
Per serving, calculated from the ingredient list with USDA FoodData Central figures (SR Legacy). A calculation, not a laboratory analysis: brands, cuts and how you measure change the real numbers. How the figures are worked out.
Your notes on this recipe
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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