French Fried Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the potatoes
Peel the potatoes and cut them into strips ½ inch thick.
Soak the potato strips in cold water for 1 hour.
Wipe the potatoes dry and place them in a frying basket.
Fry
Heat the fat until hot enough to brown a thin slice of potato in 1 minute.
Lower the basket into the hot fat, avoiding overcrowding to prevent sogginess.
Fry until the potatoes are nicely browned, then lift them from the fat.
Drain and serve
Shake off excess grease and place on cheesecloth to absorb fat.
Dust lightly with salt and serve immediately.
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
- Starchy flesh that becomes fluffy inside while the outside crisps and browns.
- Fat for frying
- Conducts heat quickly to cook the potatoes and drives browning and crispness at the surface.
The step that matters
Keep the fat hot and the basket uncrowded. Adding too many cold potato strips drops the fat temperature, so the potatoes steam and absorb grease instead of crisping. Frying in small batches keeps the fat hot enough to seal and brown the 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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