Pommes rissolées

Pommes rissolées are the frozen cooked potato side that exists for the simplest dinner plates: eggs, sausage, steak, or anything else that needs a quick starch. By our assessment, the good part is the browned, already-cooked surface, which saves a lot of chopping and pan time. The limit is just as clear: once potatoes are pre-cooked and frozen, they are never quite as crisp or lively as potatoes fried from raw. In practice they ask for heat, a pan, and a little patience to avoid ending up soft. They sit between hash browns and plain fried potatoes, closer to convenience food than to anything carefully made. The catalogue’s frozen-cooked label matches them well, and that is also the ceiling of the idea.