French Fried Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Peel the potatoes and cut them into strips ½ inch thick.
Soak the potato strips in cold water for 1 hour.
Heat the fat until it can brown a thin slice of potato in 1 minute.
Wipe the potatoes dry and place them in a frying basket.
Fry and serve
Lower the basket into the hot fat, avoiding overcrowding.
Fry until the potatoes are nicely browned.
Lift them from the fat and shake off excess grease.
Place on cheesecloth to absorb fat and dust lightly with salt.
Serve immediately for crisp and mealy potatoes.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Potatoes
- Starch forms the crisp browned crust and the soft, mealy interior when fried.
- Fat for frying
- Conducts heat to cook the potatoes quickly and browns their surface.
The step that matters
Dry the potatoes before frying. Surface water must be removed, otherwise it cools the hot fat and turns the frying into steaming, which prevents a crisp, browned surface.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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