French-fried Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Slice raw potatoes into half-inch slices, then cut into half-inch strips.
Soak the potato strips in cold water for one hour.
Dry the potato strips thoroughly.
Fry and serve
Fry the potato strips in smoking hot fat until golden brown.
Season 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
- Raw potatoes
- Starch provides the bulk of the fry, cooking into a fluffy interior inside a crisp exterior.
- Smoking hot fat
- Conducts heat quickly to cook the strips and drive off surface moisture, producing browning and crispness.
The step that matters
Dry the potato strips thoroughly. Surface water must be removed before frying; otherwise it cools the hot fat, causes splattering, and steams the potatoes instead of letting the surface crisp and brown.
“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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