Our batata harra recipe makes Lebanese spicy potatoes with garlic sauce and fresh coriander. These super crunchy twice-cooked potatoes are boiled, left to cool, pan-fried, then tossed in Aleppo pepper, coriander and toum, a garlic sauce. This recipe by chef Joseph Abboud of Rumi restaurant in Melbourne is quick and easy and the potatoes are addictively delicious. Make double!
Rumi owner-chef Joseph Abboud’s batata harra recipe makes one of our favourite Middle Eastern dishes, super-crunchy spicy Lebanese potatoes that are spicy thanks to Aleppo pepper, garlicky courtesy of toum, and fresh and fragrant thanks to coriander (cilantro). I’ve made two tweaks, using paprika, as I can’t source Aleppo pepper, sadly, and doubling the spice!
I adore batata harra with garlicky shish tawook – because you can never have enough garlic – or any chicken dish for that matter. Batata harra is brilliant with roast chicken and an Arabic farmers salad for a simple and comforting home-style meal. It’s also fantastic with kofta kebabs, fattoush or tabbouleh. I’ve been putting batata harra on our chicken shawarma instead of regular potato fries!
Mostly associated with Lebanon, you’ll find batata harra on menus all over the Middle East. Funnily enough, we didn’t cook batata harra at all during the decade or more that we lived in and travelled the Middle East for work and pleasure. In fact we didn’t cook a lot of Middle Eastern food at home when we lived there, as we’d eat it out, pick up take-away, and eat it at work. Arabic food in all its forms was just so delicious and so affordable.
The main Middle Eastern specialty that Terence often made at home in Abu Dhabi and Dubai was this hummus recipe, which one of Terence’s Lebanese colleagues taught him to make. He used to take it to work to snack on with cucumber spears and carrot sticks.
In fact, it’s only since we’ve lived in Southeast Asia and I’ve been in Australia this year that I’ve been cooking Middle Eastern food regularly. I’ve had cravings. What might also seem a little odd is that when I had cravings for batata harra back home in Siem Reap last year, I emailed a chef in Australia not Lebanon.
Because it was in Melbourne where we ate the best batata harra we’ve eaten in our lives, at the restaurant of Lebanese-Australian chef Joseph Abboud, the superb Rumi restaurant in Melbourne – one of our favourite Melbourne restaurants. The recipe is from Joseph’s cookbook Rumi, which I haven’t been able to find yet, but when I do I’ll ask Joseph if I can share more recipes.
I begged a very harried Joseph for this batata harra recipe on the eve of the opening of his new restaurant and soon after publication of his book (cravings will do that!), for which I felt very guilty afterwards because while I’ve been making Joseph’s version of batata harra ever since, I’m only just sharing it with you now. So please do make it and, as I said, if there are more than two of you, make double!
Batata Harra Recipe for Lebanese Spicy Potatoes with Garlic Sauce and Coriander
Before I share some tips to making this batata harra recipe for Lebanese spicy potatoes with garlic sauce, I wanted to tell you about a couple of key ingredients from the Middle East that really make this dish, Aleppo pepper and toum.
Aleppo Pepper
If you haven’t used or heard of Aleppo Pepper before, it’s a gently spiced deep red chilli pepper of the Capsicum annuum variety, that’s dried, de-seeded, and sold as flakes or ground in Syria, Turkey and right across the Middle East. We used to buy it from supermarkets when we lived in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, although it was of course sold at spice markets.
Also called Halaby pepper, named after Aleppo, the atmospheric northern Syrian city not far from the Turkish border that is one of the world’s oldest continually inhabited cities, and, along with Damascus, one of our favourite cities in the world. It’s grown on farms around Aleppo. Halaby is the Arabic name of Aleppo.
Aleppo pepper is used in lots of Syrian dishes, but it’s an essential ingredient in muhamarra, the wonderful red capsicum and walnut dip from Aleppo. Aleppo pepper is also called Halebi bibar in Armenian – Aleppo had a sizeable Armenian population – and pul biber in Turkish, where it’s also used in dishes such as the divine poached eggs with yoghurt dish called cilbir.
Chilli peppers travelled to Spain from the Caribbean with Christopher Columbus, and were traded with the Moors, who sold them at markets across North Africa and the Middle East, which were part of the sprawling Ottoman Empire – which explains why there are so many similar dishes in the region.
I have not been able to source Aleppo pepper here at all, so I’ve used smoky paprika. If you don’t have a good Middle Eastern supermarket nearby, Aleppo pepper is available on Amazon.
If I was not cooking for my mother right now, I’d use a mortar and pestle to pound a blend of smoky paprika and chilli flakes as a substitute, because while Aleppo pepper is milder than chilli flakes, it does have a gentle kick of heat. Ancho chilli might be another good substitute, although I can’t get hold of that either.
Some cooks recommend sweet paprika over smoky paprika, but Aleppo pepper has an earthiness to it, rather than sweetness, although it does have a slight fruitiness and citrus notes, so maybe a combo of sweet and smoky paprika is best.
There’s also a slight saltiness to Aleppo pepper because the peppers are dried with salt, however, there’s salt in the batata harra recipe, so I don’t recommend adding salt to your spice mix if you’re going to have a go at making your own blend.
Toum
If you’ve eaten a chicken shawarma in the Middle East, then you’ve eaten toum, an Arabic whipped garlic dip, which is liberally spread on the pita bread. Toum is also fantastic with shish tawook or any chicken dish for that matter. But I also love it with kebbeh.
You should be able to buy toum from the supermarket. I’m in Australia at the moment and toum is sold in ALDI supermarkets as ‘garlic dip’. You will find toum in the cold section with hummus and other dips. While I’m not a fan of store-bought hummus and baba ganoush, the toum is exactly as it should be. I’ve bought it a few times and it takes me right back to the Middle East.
If you can’t find toum in the supermarket, make a beeline for your nearest Lebanese take-away or kebab shop and buy some from them. When we lived in Abu Dhabi and Dubai they used to give a small container of toum away with any take-out orders.
Tips to Making this Batata Harra Recipe for Lebanese Spicy Potatoes
This batata harra recipe for Lebanese spicy potatoes couldn’t be easier but I have a few quick tips to ensure you end up with the crunchiest potatoes and a spice level to suit your palate.
The Potatoes
Firstly, you need to use floury potatoes, such as Sebago potatoes so that the batata harra are soft and fluffy inside and have a crunchy exterior. Desiree potatoes, the pink-skinned potatoes, which are both waxy and fluffy, are also great.
Joseph’s recipe called for a kilo of potatoes, which was far too many for two people – we were eating them for days! So I’ve halved his recipe. If you want to make more, just click on ‘Servings’ in the recipe.
Note that while this batata harra recipe is quick and easy, you will need to allow time for the potatoes to cool. When testing Joseph’s recipe I found that the colder the potatoes are, the better they fry and crunchier they turn out.
My best result was actually when I boiled the potatoes the day before and left them in the fridge overnight. Then, about ten minutes before I wanted to cook them, I let them sit on the kitchen counter, and before transferring them to the pan I patted them down with a paper kitchen towel to remove any moisture.
So all you need to do to prep the potatoes is to wash them, cut them into 4cm (1½ in) cubes – might seem large but they’ll ‘shrink’ after frying them. Transfer the diced potatoes to a big pot of water, add the salt, bring the water to a boil over high heat, then reduce to medium-low and simmer.
After a few minutes, poke a fork (or skewer or knife) into a potato to check if it’s cooked. If there’s little resistance, it’s ready. Drain the potatoes in a colander then spread them all out on a chopping board to cool them right down and dry out completely.
Once cool, I refrigerate the potatoes until about ten minutes before I’m going to cook the batata harra, but as I said above: make sure to pat the potatoes down with a paper kitchen towel before frying them.
Frying the Potatoes
Pour enough oil for deep-frying into a deep pan, deep fryer or saucepan. It’s impossible for me to tell you exactly how much oil as it will depend on what you’re using to fry the potatoes in and how large it is, but essentially you need enough oil to just about cover the potatoes.
You’ll need to heat the oil to 180°C / 355°F using a kitchen thermometer to check the temperature then take care to transfer the potatoes to the hot oil. I recommend frying the potatoes in batches so the pan isn’t too crowded and the potatoes aren’t touching.
Fry the potatoes for around 3-5 minutes per batch until they’re golden brown and super crunchy then use a slotted spoon to transfer the fried potatoes to a wire rack placed over an oven tray to drain them.
Seasoning the Potatoes
While the potatoes are draining, to a large mixing bowl you’ll need to add the toum, Aleppo pepper (or smoky paprika) and salt, and stir them well with a spoon to combine them, so that the flavour evenly distributes when you add the potatoes.
Transfer the fried potato pieces to the bowl and toss them until the potatoes are well coated in the garlicky sauce, spice and seasoning. Taste a potato and adjust the sauce if needed to suit your palate.
I actually use the same amount of spice as Joseph does for a kilo of potatoes, which is double the amount, as I found it didn’t have enough spice for me, so you may well want to add half the amount of spice then gradually adjust.
Lastly, add the fresh coriander leaves just before serving, toss again, then transfer the potatoes to a bowl or plate and serve immediately. Batata harra is fantastic with everything – from spiced beef kofta to garlicky chicken shish tawook. In fact that’s probably what I love them with best.
Batata Harra Recipe for Lebanese Spicy Potatoes
Ingredients
- 500 g potatoes - floury
- oil - neutral, for deep frying
- 1 tbsp toum
- 1 tsp Aleppo pepper - or ground smoky paprika
- pinch of flaky sea salt - or to taste
- 10 g fresh coriander - cilantro leaves, roughly chopped
Instructions
- Wash the potatoes and cut them into 4cm (1½ in) cubes.
- Transfer the diced potatoes to a large pot of water, add a teaspoon of salt, bring the water to a boil over high heat, then reduce to medium-low and simmer. After 3-4 minutes, poke a fork into a potato to check if they’re cooked; there should be little resistance.
- Drain the potatoes in a colander and spread them out on a cutting board to cool down and dry out completely.
- Pour enough oil* for deep-frying into a deep pan, deep fryer or saucepan and heat the oil to 180°C / 355°F, using a kitchen thermometer to check the temperature. (*amount of oil will depend on the size of your pan/fryer, but it should be enough oil so that the potato pieces are submerged.)
- Transfer the potatoes to the hot oil and fry the potatoes (in batches if needed) for around 3-5 minutes (each batch) until golden brown. Use a slotted spoon to transfer the fried potatoes to a wire rack to drain.
- To a large mixing bowl, add the toum, Aleppo pepper (or smoky paprika) and salt, stir to combine well, then add the fried potatoe pieces and toss until the potatoes are well-coated in the garlicky sauce, spice and seasoning. Taste and adjust to your palate.
- Add the fresh coriander leaves and toss again, then transfer to a bowl or plate and serve immediately.
Nutrition
Please do let us know if you make this batata harra recipe for Lebanese spicy potatoes as we’d love to know how it turns out for you.
Love this recipe! So easy and so yummy! Thank you!!
Hi Annie, so pleased to hear this but the person to thank is chef Joseph Abboud :) Do try to get hold of his cookbook Rumi for more amazing Middle Eastern recipes, and thanks so much for dropping by.