I guess if you poured it onto cool potatoes in a cool dish it might have lost a lot of the temperature quite quickly, whereas if you put cool potatoes in a hot pan with hot fat and baste them quickly it might help them stay crispier and not soak up the fat. Could that have been it?
the pan was hot, room temp or above potatoes, very,very hot fat, so kind of sounds like it should have been ok. I think overcrowding the most likely culprit. still nom etc.
I guess if you poured it onto cool potatoes in a cool dish it might have lost a lot of the temperature quite quickly, whereas if you put cool potatoes in a hot pan with hot fat and baste them quickly it might help them stay crispier and not soak up the fat. Could that have been it?