this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2026
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Oh I want to try it out but I'm kind of scare by any salt recipe from the new world. It seems that USA' and Canada's standard size of cristal salt is very diffdrent from the french one, living many of my dishes from there way over salted. I guess if we're talking about melted salt and brine saturation it could be fine but I'm still scared.
Can I use any potatoes or do I need something starchy/tender/...?
Oh wow, I never even considered the salt itself would be an issue. It looks like you would likely have coarse grey salt, gros sel, as your large grain salt? I use Kosher or coarse sea salt, which from what I can find, is fairly the same volumetrically, but things also said grey salt is denser with actual salt. The saltwater is pretty much a saturated solution or close to it, so I don't know if you could actually oversalt the water. The weight ratios I found have around 1 lb salt per 4 lb potatoes.
For the potatoes themselves, we have little bags of boiling potatoes, either white, red, or a mix or red, white, and purple. They have thin skins and hold up well for boiling. Looking up French styles, la Charlotte, Ratte, l'Amandine, Belle de Fontenay, Annabelle, Franceline, Nicola, Roseval, and Chérie all seem likely useable. Ours are around the size of a golf or ping pong ball. All yours seem more finger shaped so I can't tell exactly how large they are.
Maybe you can find a French recipe for the papas arrugadas the other commentor mentioned to get a version with things you can buy more easily. Other than the sauce, the idea seems the same.
Oh... So I should use some gros sel whenever kosher salt is mention. That changes many thing. I probably try it (one day) and keep you updated but I feel like many times a recipe seems straighforwars it is because we make a lot of assumtions that don't necessary match another culture well.
I've tried reading a few things now, and I think that is going to be your best starting point. I can only get so much without knowing the French words, since I'm sure the detail of the translation is much more important when talking about something as specific as tiny structures and textures.
It sounds like kosher salt is more flakey, while gros sel is cubic, but I'm thinking that they are not fine salts and will leave more air pockets when measuring by volume should keep you closest. Grey salt from the sea is going to have some taste that a white salt from a mine isn't, but if it's just being used 90% for whatever osmosis trick it is doing to potatoes, that probably isn't going to make a huge difference.
My understanding is all recipes in English (or at least from America) are written with kosher salt in mind. Salt that would go in a shaker is much too fine and will make food much saltier than intended, it's probably twice as much salt.
It's easy to slip one's mind trying to share something like this, that seems like it would be the most mundane recipe, as probably for both of us, salt and potatoes are daily staples we don't pay much mind to, we just know what to use.
Thank you for taking time to think this through when I did not (^_^)
Of course! I enjoy talking to you and you teach me so much about France I would never think to learn about.