French fries secrets

1. Selection of ingredients. Use the most firm dense potatoes of large and medium size. Soft, loose potatoes that have lost a lot of moisture absorb a lot of oil when frying, as a result, french fries become greasy and tasteless. Small tubers are difficult to cut into slices of the desired thickness.

Only refined (purified from harmful impurities) and preferably deodorized (does not emit an unpleasant odor when heated) vegetable oil is suitable for frying. The ideal option is olive, slightly worse than sunflower.

It is believed that McDonald’s fast food restaurants use animal fat to fry their fries, but this is not the case. For many years now, the company has switched from a blend of beef tallow and cottonseed oil to analogues that do not contain trans fats. In the USA and Canada it is a mixture of rapeseed, corn and soybean oil, in Russia and Belarus it is a specially developed refined sunflower oil.

2. Cleaning and cutting. First, potatoes should be washed and peeled. Then cut properly.

If the difference in the thickness (diameter) of the blanks exceeds 2 mm, then when frying, small pieces will be overcooked, large ones will not be ready yet. The optimal thickness of sticks for french fries is 5-6 mm, length is 3-9 cm.

There are special kitchen appliances for quickly cutting fries, but the cost of these devices is unpleasantly surprising. It is advisable to buy them if you make homemade french fries all the time. In another case, I advise you to practice hand-cutting. After several attempts, everything will work out.

3. Soaking. The authors of some recipes recommend soaking blanks to remove excess starch. In fact, this is not required for deep-frying, on the contrary, often starch is even added. In our case, soaking enhances the flavor and prepares the fries for the next important step, freezing.

To 1 liter of water, add 1 tablespoon of sugar and half a tablespoon of salt, mix. The water should become neutral: neither sweet nor salty. Adjust the proportions if necessary. Soak the French fries in water for 15-20 minutes, this will noticeably improve the taste. You do not need to dry the pieces on a towel.

4. Freezing. If you fry French fries without freezing, then by the time a crispy crust forms on the surface, the inside of the block will dry out and the flesh will become tough. After freezing, the formed ice crust will not allow the core to dry quickly, and the high temperature of the oil will evaporate moisture from the surface in 10-15 seconds.

Put the blanks in the freezer for 60-90 minutes so that the pieces freeze and become hard.

5. Roasting. Any deep dishes will do: a saucepan, a large frying pan, a multicooker bowl.

Wipe the dishes dry so that there is not a drop of moisture left in it, which, when heated, will turn into steam, and the hot oil will splash in your face.

Heat up the oil in your chosen container. Vegetable oil boils at 200°C and starts to smoke, but that’s overkill. The optimum oil temperature for frying French fries is 168°C. To check the readiness, it is enough to lower a piece of potato or a peel into the oil, if seething has begun, you can start frying.

Put the semi-finished products in small portions on the deep fryer and dip into the hot oil. You can fry without deep-frying, just throwing in pieces, and then taking them out with a slotted spoon. There is no fundamental difference, but deep-frying is more convenient.

Fry until the french fries are golden, 5-8 minutes on average. I do not advise you to overdo it, the longer the potatoes are fried, the more oil it absorbs.

6. Serving on the table. Place cooked french fries on paper towel to remove excess oil. You can sprinkle with salt and pepper. Eat while hot. The dish goes well with ketchup and other spicy sauces.