Spicy and Sour Stir-Fried Potatoes

"Serving stir-fried potatoes with rice defies culinary logic for some, but it should come as no surprise that this carb-on-carb union offers a meal high in both comfort and happiness. Across Asian cuisines potatoes are frequently enjoyed with a bowl of rice: There’s the Tibetan dish alu sipsip, which features shredded potatoes stir-fried with green peppers; the homestyle Korean banchan gamja bokkeum, a similar dish of pan-fried potato strips; and there are myriad Indian stir-fried potato dishes.

This recipe is based on the Sichuan dish qiang chao tu dou si, shredded potatoes stir-fried with chiles and Sichuan peppercorns and finished with sharp black vinegar (though it’s worth noting that stir-fried potatoes in various preparations are eaten throughout China). It may sound counterintuitive to talk about crisp-tender potatoes, but that’s exactly the result you're looking for here. Stir-frying the potato strips will temper their raw bite, but they should retain some defined crunch. Slice the potatoes as uniformly as possible to ensure they cook evenly and give them a quick soak to wash away some of the starch to encourage crisp sticks rather than gluey ones. This dish can be made with any type of large potato—quick cooking at high heat means that even starchy potatoes like russets won’t fall apart." —Hetty McKinnon