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Dessert

French Fried Potatoes

French fried potatoes are thinly sliced potatoes fried in lard and seasoned with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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French Fried Potatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel and slice the potatoes lengthwise into ¼ inch thick slices.

  2. Soak the slices in cold water for at least 1 hour.

  3. Dry the potato slices with a cloth.

Fry and serve

  1. Heat the lard in a deep pan.

  2. Fry the potato slices until they are nearly done.

  3. Remove them with a skimmer and drain briefly.

  4. Return the potatoes to the lard and continue frying until fully cooked.

  5. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt and serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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
Their starch gives the fries a soft, fluffy interior and makes up most of the dish.
Lard
Hot fat transfers heat quickly, cooking the potato and browning its surface.

The step that matters

Return the potatoes to the lard. The first fry cooks the interior, and the second fry in hot fat drives off surface moisture and crisps the outside. Returning them too early or in cooler fat leaves the fries limp and greasy.

“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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