Crispy Potato Tots

"Why this recipe works:We recently found that our nostalgia for frozen tots, like many kid-friendly foods, outshone the reality. Determined to right this wrong, we hit the kitchen in search of potato tots with a golden, crunchy exterior and light, fluffy interior. Many recipes simply mix coarsely ground potato with flour and egg, but these tots fried up into raw, dense nuggets. Parcooking the chopped potato in the microwave was a step in the right direction, but the tots were still too heavy. Reducing the flour and omitting the egg helped, but the tots were still not light and fluffy. To minimize the gluey texture of potato starch, we tried processing the potatoes with water. Perfection. This step rinsed off the excess starch, and a small amount of salt in the mixture kept the interior downy white...."