4 Levels of Tater Tots: Amateur to Food Scientist

[liquid dripping] [food squishing]

[food sizzling] [knife scraping]

[upbeat music]

I'm Bianca and I'm a level one chef.

I'm Emily and I'm a level two chef.

My name is Chef Joshua.

I'm a pro chef at the Institute of Culinary Education.

And I've been cooking professionally for 12 years.

[upbeat music]

I'm making Cajun tater tot kisses.

You ain't ever heard that one before, did ya?

Today I'm making giant, loaded,

potato flavored stuffed tater tots.

They are intense and they are beautiful.

I'm making confit pommes pave

with homemade creme fraiche, yuzu, salmon roe and dill.

[dynamic music]

Like the average person,

I don't have time to shred my potatoes.

So we're gonna keep it cute with some frozen hash browns.

I'm gonna be using russet potatoes today, peeled.

I'm gonna hold them in water so that way they don't oxidize.

I'm gonna be tossing my potatoes in duck fat.

I have three peeled russet potatoes.

And I'm going to parboil them.

So the first thing I need to do is salt my water.

And then I'm just going to put my peeled potatoes in here.

And we're gonna boil them like 12 to 18 minutes,

it just kind of depends on the size of the potato.

I want my potatoes to be about

three to four millimeter thick.

Mandolin, make sure when you're at home

that you're using the guard that comes along with this.

Otherwise you could easily lose a fingertip.

Now they're sliced.

Right away, I wanna transfer right into the duck fat

so that way it doesn't oxidize.

I think I need a little help.

Ah, wonderful.

So what we're looking for with the parboil

is like a soft outside, but it's still fairly firm inside.

This gives the tater tot the different textures

that you get in the tater tot.

Pommes pave means that it is sliced potatoes

that are then baked.

And because I'm cooking it in the fat

we could call this a confit pommes pave.

Now that all the potatoes have been sliced,

I'm gonna be seasoning it with salt and pepper.

Now it's time to get my pan lined, my potatoes in,

so that way I can get them into the oven.

I'm gonna start to layer them in.

And I wanna make sure that I'm getting some overhang

so that way the natural potato starch

holds it together as it bakes.

Sticking together like friends.

If you don't do this,

all your potatoes are just gonna fall apart.

This is what we call a labor of love.

I'm gonna pour my shredded potatoes.

Well, I wanna get all of this water out

so when I fry my potatoes, they get nice and crispy.

And we can turn them into little tots.

So the best part about tater tots,

even if it's made out of a frozen hash brown,

is the crispy exterior.

But it's also the texture that you taste on the inside,

where it's fluffy.

These are gonna have the same thing,

but it's gonna be a more organized texture.

We're going for layers,

not just a random mashup of textures.

Take this extra piece and pop it on there.

And I'm gonna go pop this in my oven.

I've got a fork.

I'm gonna test my potatoes.

When I go in, the outside

is soft enough for me to go in easily,

but then when I hit the middle, it's still pretty firm.

That's a parboiled potato.

These guys have been in a 300 degree oven

for about two hours.

I wanna check to make sure that they're nice and tender,

so I'm gonna use a cake tester to make sure

it goes in and out without resistance.

Perfect.

I'm gonna cover 'em up for about half hour

just to start to set and cool.

I wanna put a weight on these

so that way the layers press together and firm up.

Need more weight.

Now I'm gonna pop these guys in the fridge overnight

to set the layers, and then I'm gonna get started

on my next element, which is also gonna take a minute.

It's grating time.

Yukon gold potatoes are a little bit waxier,

whereas russets are a little bit fluffier, I feel like.

And they also have more nutrients.

If you get these little nubs

and you're afraid of your fingers,

you're absolutely right, be careful.

Finger tots, not as delicious.

Oh, that's cool. [laughs]

The grater helped me make thin pieces of potato.

I just wanna make sure they're not too long.

It's just about like not having weird, long,

stringy straggly bits that make it hard to form,

or anything like that.

I'm going to add pepper.

Little more salt.

The cornstarch helps bind it a little bit,

as does flour, so we can shape them.

And garlic powder to taste.

This is a pretty loose mix.

You kind of just have to press it together.

All right, my potato mixture is ready for totification.

24 hours later, chilled overnight in the fridge.

Assuming I packaged these up right,

they should pop out very easily.

I was nervous for nothing.

I'm gonna cut them to a nice even size,

about one and a half inch squares.

And it just goes through so easy

'cause the potato's been cooked properly.

Everything is holding together.

Nothing's falling apart.

You can still see all of the individual layers.

And when this fries up, you're gonna end up

with all this beautiful texture on the outside.

On the inside, it's just gonna stay

nice and fluffy and delicious.

Oh yeah, these are gonna be banging.

Now I'm gonna make my seasoning.

The onion powder.

I'm gonna eyeball it.

I really don't do well with measurements.

I just let my ancestors lead me, you feel me?

Garlic powder.

Black pepper.

Now this is what I call the holy trinity.

It's gonna taste good with this either way,

but let's keep going.

Some salt, add some oregano, paprika.

Add some thyme and some cayenne.

Okay, chefing it up.

I'm gonna make the filling for my tater tots.

While my pan heats up, I'm going to chop my scallions.

For my filling I really only need the scallion whites,

and then I'm going to save the greens for my garnish later.

All right, my pan is nice and hot.

The first thing I'm gonna do is fry up my bacon.

There's lots of browning.

A lot of the fat has rendered out.

So now I'm adding in my scallion whites.

My scallions look right, they're a little bit translucent.

So in goes my cream cheese.

Yes, this is pretty fatty,

but it kind of seasons my potatoes from the inside out,

so don't worry about it too much.

This is softened, which is all I was looking for.

And now I'm gonna add my cheddar.

I am just melting my cream cheese and cheddar together

until they're sort of one unit.

This looks almost done.

I'm going to make like a cheese block, basically.

I'm gonna put my cheesy mixture

in the fridge for about an hour or so,

until it is cool enough for me to cut the cheese.

Something fatty and salty could really use

something bright to help cut through that richness.

For me, I'm gonna do some yuzu spherification

to provide an nice cool element to my plate.

What? [laughs]

Stop.

Sphere of vacation, no.

But I would like to go.

I'm kidding.

I'm gonna start by taking my yuzu juice and my agar agar.

The agar agar is derived from algae,

which makes it vegetarian.

But it also has a higher gelling power than natural gelatin.

It's about 10 times more powerful.

I'm gonna combine them in my pot

and we're gonna start to bring this to a boil.

Which means that I can see rapid bubble movement.

Now I'm gonna take this off.

We're gonna let this hang out here

until it's just about room temperature,

but we don't want it to cool and set all the way in the pot.

All right, here's my filling.

I'm going to be slicing this into rectangles

around two inches by a little less than an inch,

I would say.

Let's wrap these puppies up in potato.

Flatten it on my hand.

Pop a rectangle on it.

Start to wrap it.

Cover it on the other side.

Form it into sort of a tater tot shape.

They're giant tater tots, as you can see.

And yet, in many ways, still tater tots.

These look beautiful.

Let's fry 'em up.

So now that my yuzu liquid is cool but is not set,

I'm gonna transfer it into my squeeze bottle,

so that way I can start my spherification.

Hey, it fit.

Pro.

We've gotten our oil, ooh, nice and cold.

Basically as cold as I can get it without a freezer.

So that way when the yuzu juice hits the top

it's gonna fall in

and it's gonna form it into a nice beautiful round shape.

When you add it and it's too hot

the droplets don't form into small balls.

They basically form into like these giant snakes.

Why do we need that though?

I think that's good for what I'm doing today.

So now I'm gonna strain this, rinse it,

and then we're all ready to use it on our tots.

I'm gonna spray some cooking oil on the air fryer

just so my tots don't stick.

The classic kind of tater tot shape

is like a miniature cylinder.

We gonna go for little tater tot kisses, you feel me?

Hey.

This is very quick, cute, but flavorful, right?

Because what?

Flavor is love.

That's what I'm here for, the flavor.

I've got my duck fat up to 350 degrees.

[Emily] I'm going to gently lower them

into my 350 degree oil.

[Joshua] It should start to bubble right away.

That tells me that my fat is nice and hot.

[Emily] Cook them until they're brown

and crispy on each side.

Yeah, you can pan fry a tot.

I could see that would work 'cause it's a nice

kind of taller product versus something like a french fry.

[Emily] All right, now we're totting.

I like using duck fat for my frying

because it imparts a good flavor

and still has a nice high smoke point.

So that way my potatoes and the fat won't burn.

I don't want to overcrowd them

'cause we wanna get them really nice and crispy.

We want the air to kind of like circulate and do its thing.

One more time with some cooking spray.

Make sure it's covered.

So I'm gonna let them cook for about 12 minutes

and they should be nice, and crispy, and golden.

I do not use an air fryer.

I like an air fryer.

It's basically a millennial cult.

It's like a small little convection oven.

It's just gonna dry out your product,

just at a quicker temp.

Hate to throw the shade, but.

I don't care what Chef Josh says.

This is the best way because it's quick and it's easy.

Ooh, that looks nice.

Giant tater tots.

These are like a beautiful golden brown.

They kind of look like a perfect

grilled cheese sandwich on the outside.

They're nice and crunchy, I can tell, already.

And as my tater tots come out of the oil

I'm just gonna hit them with a little extra salt and pepper.

My flavorings are already on the inside of my tots,

so I don't need to put anything else on top right now.

Gonna be nice and soft inside.

These are gonna be delicious.

Feel it in my heart.

Okay, so my tots, they look nice.

They look golden brown, crispy, little chunky.

Now I'm going to season them in the air fryer

because the air fryer can do all the things.

As my potatoes fry, I'm gonna chop up some dill.

I like to have a nice bright, fresh element

to cut through all of the salty, rich,

fatty tater tots that we're working with today.

Now these are ready to come out.

We wanna let as much of the fat drain off as possible.

Paper towels are gonna catch some of the excess fat

that comes off of the tots.

Make sure that the tots stay as crispy as possible.

Beautiful flaky sea salt, dill, sauce.

Now I'm a saucy girl.

Sauce makes a meal for me.

First, I'm starting with some barbecue sauce

to add a little sweet, tangy, delicious.

It's good on its own, but we're gonna make it better.

Ketchup and fries, you can't go wrong with that combo.

You gotta keep the original.

So we're gonna add a little ketchup.

And lastly, some hot sauce.

A little spice is nice.

My tater tots are so complicated, my sauce is super easy.

We're going for like a loaded baked potato thing.

So I have scallions, sour cream, salt, and pepper.

Mix it up a little bit.

I don't know why sour cream

and potatoes go so well together,

but they are like a match made in heaven.

It makes sense.

You definitely want something cool and tart to kind of

cut through the richness and saltiness of the tater tots.

I'm going to put it in this little bowl

to make it look fancier for plating.

But I'm pretty much done here.

Now that my potatoes have been resting in the fridge,

I'm gonna use this time to work on my creme fraiche.

How do you make your own creme fraiche?

I will be watching this video to find out.

Using this mason jar, I'm gonna combine heavy cream,

buttermilk, and salt, and cook them for nine hours

in a 100 degree water bath using the circulator.

You know how much things you could do in nine hours?

We have to prioritize sleep, ladies and gentlemen.

All right?

Heavy cream, buttermilk, and salt.

Wanna tighten it up basically all the way

and then just one turn back.

We wanna give it a little bit of a shake

so everything's incorporated evenly.

When it cooks in the water bath

it's gonna be under pressure.

I wanna make sure that we don't build up too much pressure

and cause the glass to explode inside of our water bath.

Nine hours later, I'm gonna remove it from my water bath.

Run this under cold water

for about 10 minutes to cool it down.

That way when I put it in my ice bath to finish chilling,

it's not gonna explode.

While the flavor is explosive, the jar is not.

All right, I'm about ready to plate.

The only thing is I didn't actually ask for this,

so I'm just gonna. [crashes]

Sorry.

So you can see after that nine hours of cooking

it has this beautiful, thick, rich texture to it.

Nice, healthy dollop.

Six to 12 on the plate, as it should be done.

My parsley.

For a little razzle-dazzle because health is wealth, y'all.

Tater tots.

Just place them on the plate.

My spherified yuzu caviar.

It's about the same size of the salmon roe,

which is nice because it's gonna look nice on the plate.

In each bite you get a little bit of that salmon

and a little bit of that brightness from the yuzu.

You can never have too much caviar.

[Bianca] I'm gonna add my parsley.

[Emily] A little scallion garnish.

[Joshua] There's already a good amount

of dill on the potatoes.

This is more for appearances,

without having an unnecessary garnish

that's gonna detract from the flavor.

Boom.

And these are my tater tots.

And these are my tater tots.

These are my tater tots.

[soft music]

Do you hear the crisp?

Do you hear the crunch?

[knife scraping] Nice and crunchy.

Sauce on there.

Okay.

[tots crunching]

Mm. Mm.

Pretty good. They're pretty good.

I'm so happy that it's soft on the inside.

I was a little worried.

I'm a saucy girl.

Food is nothing without the sauce.

The sour cream kind of breaks up

the fattiness a little bit of it.

It's a perfect midnight snack.

Beautiful crunch on the outside.

You get the texture from the inside

of the layers that have been set up.

Nice brininess from the salmon roe.

You get the beautiful citrus flavor coming from the yuzu.

This may be the world's first

loaded baked potato giant tater tot.

I don't know.

Am I a genius?

You tell me.

Tater tots are fluffy on the inside

crisp and crunchy on the outside.

Let's see how each of our chefs made theirs.

[dramatic music]

Bianca used frozen hash browns

that she formed into tater tots.

While frozen potatoes are convenient,

as water turns to ice and takes up more space,

some of the cellular structure is broken down,

essentially bursting the cells open.

Bianca needed to really squeeze

and drain her frozen hash browns

because too much water means they won't retain their shape

when formed into tater tots.

Emily and Joshua used russets.

This is a mealy potato,

which means they have a higher starch concentration

in their cells, making them denser.

When cooked, the cells swell and separate,

giving a fluffy texture that works nicely for tater tots.

Joshua sliced his russet potatoes paper thin

instead of shredding them,

and held them in duck fat, which is a mixture

of saturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids.

Fatty acids are chains of carbon

surrounded by hydrogen atoms.

Saturated fatty acids are solid at room temperature,

whereas unsaturated fatty acids tend to be liquid.

The longer the carbon chain in an unsaturated fatty acid

the more it mimics saturated fats.

It tends to be viscous

and partially solid at room temperature.

Duck fat is high in this type of polyunsaturated fatty acid.

By holding the potatoes in duck fat, Josh reduced oxidation,

and also gave a rich quality to his potatoes.

[dramatic music]

Bianca blended dry seasonings like thyme and cayenne,

which adds a spicy quality to her tater tots.

Emily made a filling for her tater tots

by combining cheeses, cooked bacon,

and the whites of scallions,

which are more intensely flavored.

Joshua made spherified yuzu.

Yuzu is a smaller yellow-orange citrus fruit

with a sweet and tangy complex flavor

due to the presence of eugenol and carvacrol,

which impart notes of cloves and oregano.

The yuzu juice is cooked together with agar agar,

a negatively charged polysaccharide derived from kelp.

Once it's dropped into the very cold oil,

the oil forms a thin film around the droplets.

The very cold oil is more viscous than at room temperature,

so it slowly encompasses the entire droplet.

This is a delicate sphere,

but adds intense drops of flavor to Joshua's tater tots.

Especially when blended with the bright saline salmon roe.

[dramatic music]

Bianca used an air fryer,

which forces air to circulate at a very high heat.

It dehydrates and browns at the same time,

so while it makes her tater tots

lower in calories while staying crispy,

they are dry and lacking some richness.

Both Emily and Joshua fried their tater tots in hot oil.

Emily used vegetable oil, which is mostly derived from soy.

And Joshua used duck fat.

Duck fat has a smoke point around 375 degrees Fahrenheit.

Vegetable oil is closer to 400.

The smoke point is the temperature

at which fats start to break down

and visible smoke appears,

indicating it's close to combustion.

So you'll wanna stay below the smoke point for safety.

[dramatic music]

Emily served sour cream,

which is a traditional dip for potatoes in many cuisines.

It's thick and tart,

and cuts through the fatty fried tater tots perfectly.

Joshua used creme fraiche, which is slightly

higher in fat than sour cream,

with a distinctly buttery flavor

from diacetyl producing strains of bacteria.

He made his own by combining

cultured buttermilk with heavy cream.

Cultured means there are viable bacterial cells present.

The lactobacillus ferment the lactose,

lowering the pH, which then destabilizes

and thickens the casein proteins

naturally occurring in the milk.

Tater tots are a fabulous snack,

side dish, or special treat.

Next time you're in the mood for crispy fried potatoes

we hope you'll take some of these tips

from our three amazing chefs.