French Fried Potatoes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the potatoes
Peel and cut the potatoes lengthwise into uniform narrow strips.
Soak the strips in ice cold water for about 3 hours.
Remove the potatoes from the water and dry them with a cloth.
Fry
Heat the fat to very hot.
Fry a few potatoes at a time until lightly browned, then drain.
Once all potatoes are half cooked and drained, return them to the hot fat to finish cooking and brown to your desired color.
Drain again and serve hot.
Salt the potatoes before serving or allow individuals to do so.
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 softens inside while the strips form a crisp, browned exterior when fried.
- Fat for frying
- Conducts heat to cook the potatoes quickly and drives surface browning and crispness.
- Coarse sea salt
- Adds savory flavor on the finished fries; applied after frying so it stays on the surface.
The step that matters
Return the half-cooked potatoes to the hot fat. The first fry cooks the interior through at a lower surface color; the second fry in very hot fat drives off surface moisture and browns the outside into a crisp shell. Frying too cool or too briefly leaves fries soggy and pale.
“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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