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The Tater Tot Topic

Jason Perlow

By Jason Perlow
in Cooking

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suzilightning

suzilightning

Posted
Posted

rained out of the hawkwatch on friday so we went to run errands and hit up whole foods. DAMN YOU JASON!! had glanced at this thread the night before and bought cascadian farms spud puppies (they have a K in a box - does this mean kosher?) ate them for dinner last night and finished them tonight. baked them twice as long as instructed and they were hot, crispy-crunchy on the outside and still like riced potatoes inside. AAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH... a new addiction to find a program for

Nothing is better than frying in lard.

Nothing.  Do not quote me on this.

 

Linda Ellerbee

Take Big Bites

fifi

fifi

Posted
Posted

OK... Head on comparison between Ore-Ida "extra crispy" and Safeway brand, Safeway brand wins hands down. This is in a DeLonghi convection oven. The Ore_Ida doesn't seem to have enough fat to really sizzle. The taste is somewhat funky as well. Maybe they would do better in a deep fry test. But... They really don't have that good potato flavor. (How did they manage to get rid of that?)

Linda LaRose aka "fifi"

"Having spent most of my life searching for truth in the excitement of science, I am now in search of the perfectly seared foie gras without any sweet glop." Linda LaRose

  • 4 months later...
Toliver

Toliver

Posted
Posted

Slightly off-topic, I saw this toy and immediately thought of this discussion:

"Darth Tater"

Whatta hoot! Though Amazon doesn't have them in stock, you can find gobs of them on eBay.

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

mizducky

mizducky

Posted
Posted (edited)

"Napoleon, give me some of your tots!" :laugh::laugh::laugh:

I would dearly love to know if sales of Tater Tots showed any kind of a spike when that movie came out. I know I found myself wandering into the frozen-food aisle shortly after seeing it. The power of suggestion?

P.S. Those things really are pretty damn good. Especially for late-night munchies.

Edited by mizducky (log)

Ellen Terris Brenner

Examiner.com: San Diego Budget Meals Examiner

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kellycolorado

kellycolorado

Posted
Posted

We usually get the 365 brand here- less scary ingredients.

My husband likes to bake them and smash them into a breakfast burrito he makes with eggs, cheese and Hatch green chiles.

Anyway...now that I have them here, let's compare ingredient lists.  WF brand lists:  potatoes, palm oil, salt, apple juice concentrate, citric acid (to retain natural color).

Ore-Ida Crispy Crowns (same as tots, only flatter): potatoes, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (soybean and/or canola), salt, precooked wheat flour, yellow corn flour, natural flavoring, dehydrated onions, maltodextrin, autolyzed yeast, dextrose, disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate (to retain natural color).

This thread inspired me to buy tots for the first time in years. We had some the other night with roasted halibut. Tonight, on my own for dinner, I baked a pan of crispy crowns at 450. Tipped into a shallow bowl, topped with grated cheddar, back in the oven for a moment. Added salsa and sour cream. Tasted good...

maggiethecat

maggiethecat

Posted
Posted
I really hate to admit this, but I make a tater tot hot dish that won me first prize in a turkey recipe contest( i use ground turkey).

This was my description submitted with the recipe " It looks gross, but tastes fabulous"

Hie thee to RecipeGullet.

Margaret McArthur

"Take it easy, but take it."

Studs Terkel

1912-2008

A sensational tennis blog from freakyfrites

margaretmcarthur.com

  • 2 weeks later...
redfox

redfox

Posted
Posted

I don't think I had had tater tots since my elementary school cafeteria, where I found them unappetizing. But we had something of a failure to get around to dinner tonight, and then finally got hungry. Went to the drugstore around the corner and there were the Ore-Ida minis. I thought of this thread and took the plunge. Now I am eating a veggie burger (or, as we call it, a "food disk") and the minis cooked within an inch of their lives. So good! I love the proportion of crust to innards.

"went together easy, but I did not like the taste of the bacon and orange tang together"

jm chen

jm chen

Posted
Posted

As a kid: when they served chicken sandwiches and tater tots in the school cafeteria, I ate the chicken patty first and then made a tater tot sandwich with the bun. Delish!

As an (overweight) young adult: Ore-Idas baked in the oven, dipped in blue cheese dressing. Mmmmmmmm.

Now: as an occasional treat, I'll stop by the Duplex Diner and order their appetizer plate of tater tots and pigs-in-blankets. How much starch and fat can one girl take? More! More!

For home recipes, I guess anything with potatoes could have tots subbed in. Tater Totiflette sounds awesome. Go heavy on the bacon!

Cooking and writing and writing about cooking at the SIMMER blog

Pop culture commentary at Intrepid Media

fifi

fifi

Posted
Posted

I forgot to report that I did try thawing some, then breaking them up with a fork into crumbs. I left them in the DeLonghi oven to get all crunchy and used them (liberally) on an impromtu salad made with left over chicken. Tot gibbles may become a staple in the fridge for just such uses, right next to the bacon crumbles. A quick pass through the DeLonghi crisps them right up.

Linda LaRose aka "fifi"

"Having spent most of my life searching for truth in the excitement of science, I am now in search of the perfectly seared foie gras without any sweet glop." Linda LaRose

snowangel

snowangel

Posted
Posted

Linda, I will send what you said about safeway tater tots. I bought our local store brand (Cub) and they were better.

I'll have to try making them into crispy bits. Would be good for topping a casserole, I think.

Susan Fahning aka "snowangel"
  • 2 months later...
lesfen

lesfen

Posted
Posted
thanks to this thread, i have to stock up on tater tots every time i'm at the store.

those chili cheese tater tots look soooo delicious.  all it needs is a dab of sour cream and some diced green onions.

My thoughts exactly. If it weren't so #@$&*!$ hot here, I'd make some myself. It's just not worth heating up the fryer, or the oven... Not even for delicious, crispy, greasy tots. Mmmmm... tots.

  • 1 year later...
Toliver

Toliver

Posted
Posted

I saw this recipe for "Parmesan Taters" coming up on the Food Network and it sounds like it might actually be good (and easy to make).

Of course, parmesan anything sounds good, too. :raz:

 

“Peter: Oh my god, Brian, there's a message in my Alphabits. It says, 'Oooooo.'

Brian: Peter, those are Cheerios.”

– From Fox TV’s “Family Guy”

 

Tim Oliver

  • 10 months later...
Sony

Sony

Posted
Posted

For dinner, I steamed a pile of broccoli...and then balanced it out by roasting up some Tater Tots (or whatever version of them McCain makes)....after rolling them in a little melted duck fat. :biggrin:

I think it's interesting that the package warns,"DO NOT OVERCOOK". I typically bake them 2-3 times longer than the directions recommend to get them as crisp and toasty as I like.

After they came out of the oven, I sprinkled them with a little garlic and tossed them with a few springs of lemon thyme (I have a plant that's going nuts!).

Man, they were good. (Of course, the broccoli was too :smile: )

  • 8 months later...
slo_ted

slo_ted

Posted
Posted

Thanks, Bob, for unearthing this thread. I spent too much time searching for it 3 days ago without success. For reasons never made clear, I have a bag of Tater Tots in my freezer and they are definitely on the menu for Sunday dinner. They should go well with braised short ribs, especially if it keeps raining.

jende

jende

Posted
Posted

Add me to the list of people who hasn't even thought about Tater Tots for 25 years, but couldn't stop obsessing about them since reading this thread. I couldn't bring myself to buy Ore-Ida, even for the sake of sentiment, but I found a "healthy" brand that only listed a few ingredients besides potatoes, and no trans fat.

I'm going to bake them up nice and crispy with a beer-marinated sirloin and a nice arugula and avocado salad. My husband is psyched.

  • 2 weeks later...
JaclynM

JaclynM

Posted
Posted (edited)

Hi all,

I am only an occasional poster to the forums, but I had to chime in and say that I've always loved tater tots! My husband and I have them occasionally with a weekend lunch.

Last spring some friends of ours had a potluck brunch, and one of the dishes that the wife served used tater tots. She just beat a couple of eggs lightly, and then poured them over some tater tots that had been spread into a single layer of a casserole dish or baking pan. Then she baked them in the oven. It was delicious!

I've tried making it myself at home for lunch. For a single serving, I used a loaf pan, because it's big enough to get all the tots in a single layer, but small enough for me to use my toaster oven. I bake the tots by themselves for about 5 minutes (according to whatever temperature is listed on the package). Then I pour over the eggs, and turn the tots with a fork to make sure they are all coated. Then I bake until the eggs are set. Yum!

Edited by JaclynM (log)
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