We've got a partnership with the recipe, equipment, and product testing gurus at America's Test Kitchen. They'll be sharing some of their time-tested recipes and technical expertise with us weekly. This week: how to perfect a nostalgic side, the tater tot.
We recently found that our nostalgia for frozen tots, like many kid-friendly foods, outshone the reality. Determined to right this wrong, we hit the test kitchen in search of potato tots with a golden, crunchy exterior and light, fluffy interior. After 100 pounds of potatoes, we finally got a recipe for tots that adults can't get enough of, either.
Why this recipe works: Many recipes simply mix coarsely ground potato with flour and egg, which fry up into raw, dense nuggets. We found that parcooking the chopped potato in the microwave was a step in the right direction, but the tots were still too heavy. Reducing the flour and omitting the egg helped, but the tots were still not light and fluffy. To minimize the gluey texture of potato starch, we tried processing the potatoes with water. Perfection. This step rinsed off the excess starch, and a small amount of salt in the mixture kept the interior downy white.
Keep reading to see the recipe for tater tots.
Any way you slice it, latkes and other fritters are an indulgent affair. With this in mind, I thought I may as well take them over-the-top and fry them till lacy and crisp-tender in rich and pleasantly gamy duck fat.
Put simply, this wound up being a very good decision. The complex flavor of the duck fat is subtle, but it makes its presence known, adding a savory note that plays off sweet applesauce and tangy crème fraîche as if they were old friends.
Family members and longtime friends often take great amusement at my career of choice, as I was a remarkably picky eater in my early years. I was no run-of-the-mill fussy child; until my teens, I turned my nose up at even the most basic, revered, and seemingly inoffensive of comfort foods: mashed potatoes. Perhaps I was prejudiced against the delightful spud due to an early negative experience — in the wrong hands they can be reminiscent of wallpaper paste — yet still, of all of my food phobias I've overcome, this might be the craziest and most embarrassing. 
Since that first revelatory bite, I've devoured them with relish and have experimented with all sorts of novel add-ins, but I keep coming back to their most simple, unadorned iteration. Bolstered by naught but cream, butter, and salt, this pared-down side might not sound like much to write home about, but don't let that dissuade you. Rather, these are the essence of potato and more than worthy of your Thanksgiving table this year.
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Not too surprisingly, flipping through the pages of pithy prose and detailed instructions provided ample inspiration — one could easily 
