The Must-Know Flour Trick For Crispy Potato Patties
Crispy potato cakes or patties can be just the thing when you're looking for a snack that delivers on both texture and flavor. The crispy, golden exterior juxtaposed with the soft, creamy center is nirvana for the tongue. But if you really want to get a crispy surface, you need to know this flour trick. Dredging is a common tactic that essentially just means you're going to coat your potato cake with a thin layer of flour before cooking. This technique takes it a step further by adding some rice flour to your all-purpose flour, which will help achieve the crispiest patties your mouth has ever tasted.
Flour serves a couple of purposes when it comes to fried foods. First, it acts as an absorbent. Moisture is the enemy of getting foods crispy and crunchy, but when you dredge potato patties in flour, it soaks up any water on the surface which in turn helps with the browning process. However, it's a bit of a slippery slope because you don't want the flour to soak up too much of that moisture. This is where rice flour comes into play.
Rice flour tempers the gluten content for better texture
It's important to remember that when you cook your potato patties covered in flour, the Maillard reaction is going to take place. This is when the proteins and the sugars in the flour are reduced, creating both flavor and color. Flours with a high protein content also have a higher gluten content, which sucks up moisture and can make a crunchy golden crust tough. And while all-purpose flour is considered to have a moderate protein content, adding a no-gluten flour like rice flour when dredging helps to reduce the overall level of gluten present.
In fact, rice flour mixed with cornstarch will give you a perfectly crispy potato cake to write home about that is less oily while still being perfectly golden and delicious. This flour trick works well with potato cakes as well as anything else you want to dredge and fry up. So, the next time you are creating a dredge, don't forget the rice flour.