Porcini Braised Short Ribs, Twice Fried Potatoes with Rosemary Cream

So this started off as an attempt to make souffled potatoes, which are 1/16" to 1/8" thin slices of potatoes that you fry twice to achieve a puffy shape and delicate flaky interior (therein the souffle).  The trick is in frying the first time at a low temperature, cooling the potatoes, and the second time at a high temperature.  A new technique to me, but didn't think it was too hard going into it, then I found that my candy thermometer was cracked and unsusable.  "Uh oh" ... sheer panic came over me, then apparently a touch of gastronomic hubris, and in the end, some practical tuning to make something out of the potential disaster.  So the hubris came in when I proceeded with the experiment without a proper thermometer to measure the oil temperature; I can say unequivocally that this was a silly idea.  While I attempted to fry at low and high temperatures, I quickly realized there was some science to be discovered here, and that my easiest out was to just treat the potatoes like really good french fries, which are also twice fried.  It should be noted that I did attempt to provide a link to an example of souffled potatoes, but the cuisine term has apparently been incredibly bastardized and all manner of potatoe preparation shows up in google; I'll definitely revisit this and provide some good pictures, I've had these in a restaurant before and thought they were great, but had no idea how elusive this french technique or online references would be.

With disaster averted in that arena, and with some short ribs braising in a rehydrated porcini broth, I proceeded to infuse a bunch of fresh parsley into a pint of heavy cream intent on elevating my poor potatoes.  I warmed the cream and rosemary to a gentle simmer and then let the essential oils from the rosemary to steep with the cream.  After straining, I poured this into the thermowhip, charged it with nitrous, and coated the potatoes with a mound of foamy rosemary cream.  The heat of the potatoes made short work of the airiness achieved in the thermowhip, but the flavor was wonderful (though rich to be sure). Really, potatoes like this belong on a steakhouse menu where you're already killing your arteries, so the preparation was out of proportion with the earthy but not as densely flavorful short ribs.  This was also served with asparagus and a duo of toasted parmesan and walnut crema (while individually, each of these is great with asparagus, the duo was confusing if consumed consecutively).

I'll need to replace the candy thermometer before having another go at souffled potatoes, and next time I'll use a little molecular gastronomy to stabilized the rosemary cream foam.  The short ribs were excellent, so simple, so cheap ($6 worth of meat, $3 worth of dried mushrooms, 2-3 hours in the oven at 250F