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These creamy and crunchy bubble potato pillows are the next best thing to French fries.
Raise your hand if you don’t love potatoes.
Hardly anybody?😜
I love how you can always make regular potatoes into something cool and scrumptious. From fries and nuggets to taters, this humble vegetable is game for makeovers.
After all, millions of foodies (88 millions and counting) have viewed mybubble potato pillowsTiktokvideo. Hundreds of people have gone ahead and recreated it during the holidays and shared their videos and photos with me.
Simply boil 2 big potatoes, peel, mash and grate them. You make the crispy nuggets by adding some flour and spices.
Shape and fry them and all that is left for you is to enjoy them with your favorite dip or good old ketchup.
What is bubble potato pillow actually?
I wanted a new and fun way of using leftovers and keeping them soft, creamy and crispy.
Because it’s sodelicious, cute and easyto make, this recipe has become popular on TikTok. In fact, Good Foodmagazine interviewed me and included this dish as one of thefive most trending Christmas food on Tiktok.
And some famous food bloggers (Such as Emmymade, Tasty…)have tried or recreated this recipe with their own twists.
Is My Bubble Potato Pillows Like Fried Gnocchi?
If you see gnocchi everywhere, all I can say is stop going to that cozy Italian diner every weekend!
Tater tots is made with its raw or half-baked gratings. I cook the potato by boiling it, dip it ice water, and mash and grate it in my recipe.
What’s the secret behind the crispy nuggets?
This recipe uses sticky rice flour or glutinous rice flour for binding everything together. If you skip the glutinous rice flour, there is a chance for your potato pillows to fell apart in the oil. The cornstarch and all purpose flour give structure to the grated potato.
If your pillows are soft, then it’s most likely your second frying temperature isn’t high enough to create a crispy coat for the potatoes.
Can I add some fillings?
The recipe gets its heat kick from the chili powder and black pepper. I think this is enough for Mr He and ME, and perhaps for most of us.
Potatoes taste and smell good by themselves.
But you can always eat them with your favorite dipping sauce, let’s say, ketchup? 😜
Since so many of you suggested me to add cheese to my potato pillows, I decided to give it a try!
50% of my potato pillows with the cheese filling leaked or exploded in oil, which could be quite dangerous🤕.
Therefore I personally don’t recommend adding any fillings to these little pillows. Unless you use an air fryer instead of deep frying them.
Can I Air Fry my Bubble Potato Pillows?
Some of you may want a healthier option to deep fried.
How about oil-free, air fried cheesy bubble potato pillows?
You canair frythese potato nuggets at350F for about 18 minutes
And For those who complained that this recipe looked too oily, there’s no need to spray oil on potatoes if you make them with an air fryer.
Now let’s start cooking my MOST POPULAR dish – bubble potato pillows~~
Ingredients
- 2Large Potatoesabout 300g
- 2 tbsp Glutinous Rice Flour (all purpose flour also works)
- 1tbspCornstarch/Potato Starch
- 1/3tspSalt
- 1/3tspPepper
- 4 cup Cooking Oil (Vegetable oil, corn oil, or canola oil)
- 1 tsp Chili Powder or some ketchup (optional)
Instructions
1. Wash the potatoes. Make a shallow cut around the waist of each potato. With this step we can easily peel off the potato skin after.
2. Boil the potatoes for at least 30 minutes until the potatoes turn soft.
3. Transfer the potatoes into iced water. Peel off the potato skins easily with your hands! (It’s similar to the egg peeling trick. We soak boiled eggs in iced water so that we can peel off the eggshells much easier.)
4. Mash the potatoes with a garlic press, a fork, or a potato ricer.
5. Mix mashed potato with glutinous rice flour, cornstarch/potato starch, salt & black pepper. Knead the mashed potatoes into a dough.
6. Separate the dough into two portions. Roll each dough into a log and cut into pillow like shape. Use a fork to make a gnocchi-like pattern.
7. Heat up 4 cups of cooking oil in a pot overmediumheat for 5 minutes; deep fry the potato pillows for 5 minutes until they turn light golden; take them out of the pot.
8. Heat up the cooking oil overhighheat for 3 minutes; deep fry the potato pillows for another 30 more seconds until they turn golden brown; take them out of the pot.
9. Serve with chili pepper power, ketchup, BBQ sauce…
Notes:
1. Instead of peeling the potatoes after cooked, you can also peel them with a peeler when they are raw, cut them into small chunks, then steam them over high heat for 20 minutes until soft.
2. You can use whatever you like to mash the potatoes, it doesn’t have to be a garlic press.
3. The double frying technique is necessary when we want a crispy outside and a creamy inside.
My other Potato Recipes you will also like:
Bubble Potato Pillows
Ms Shi & Mr He
These cute pillow shape potato nuggets are so crispy outside and creamy inside. So many people successfully made them and @ed me in their videos. I’m sure you can make them too!
4.45 from 9 votes
Print Recipe Pin Recipe
Prep Time 10 minutes mins
Cook Time 40 minutes mins
Total Time 50 minutes mins
Course Appetizer, Snack
Cuisine American, Chinese
Servings 4 people
Calories 400 kcal
Equipment
1 Pot For boiling and deep frying
1 Fork
Ingredients
- 2 Large Potatoes about 300g
- 2 tbsp Glutinous Rice Flour all purpose flour also works
- 1 tbsp Cornstarch/Potato Starch
- 1/3 tsp Salt
- 1/3 tsp Pepper
- 4 cup Cooking Oil Vegetable oil, corn oil, or canola oil
- 1 tsp Chili Powder Optional
- Some Ketchup Optional
Instructions
Wash the potatoes. Make a shallow cut around the waist of each potato. With this step we can easily peel off the potato skin after.
Boil the potatoes for at least 30 minutes until the potatoes turn soft.
Transfer the potatoes into iced water. Peel off the potato skins easily with your hands! (It's similar to the egg peeling trick. We soak boiled eggs in iced water so that we can peel off the eggshells much easier.)
Mash the potatoes with a garlic press, a fork, or a potato ricer.
Mix mashed potato with glutinous rice flour, cornstarch/potato starch, salt & black pepper. Knead the mashed potatoes into a dough.
Separate the dough into two portions. Roll each dough into a log and cut into pillow like shape. Use a fork to make a gnocchi-like pattern.
Heat up 4 cups of cooking oil in a pot overmediumheat for 5 minutes; deep fry the potato pillows for 5 minutes until they turn light golden; take them out of the pot.
Heat up the cooking oil overhighheat for 3 minutes; deep fry the potato pillows for another 30 more seconds until they turn golden brown; take them out of the pot.
Serve with chili pepper power, ketchup, BBQ sauce…
Video
Notes
- Instead of peeling the potatoes after cooked, you can also peel them with a peeler when they are raw, cut them into small chunks, then steam them over high heat for 20 minutes until soft.
- You can use whatever you like to mash the potatoes, it doesn’t have to be a garlic press.
- The double frying technique is necessary when we want a crispy outside and a creamy inside.
Keyword Potato, Snack, Vegan