Fried Potatoes, French
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Pare the potatoes and soak them in cold water for at least 1 hour.
Cut the potatoes into slices, blocks, strips, or any desired shape, then dry them on a towel.
Fry and serve
Heat the cooking fat until hot enough to brown the potatoes quickly.
Drop the potatoes into the hot fat; they are done when they float to the surface.
Remove the potatoes with a skimmer and place them in a draining basket.
Keep the potatoes warm in the oven and sprinkle with coarse sea salt before serving.
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 provides the fluffy interior and, with the fat, the crisp golden exterior.
- Cooking fat
- Conducts heat quickly to brown and crisp the potato surface while cooking the interior.
The step that matters
Drying the potatoes before frying. Surface water turns to steam in hot fat, which can splatter and cool the oil, leading to soggy, greasy fries instead of crisp ones. Thorough drying helps the surface brown properly.
“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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