The best 20 minute french fry – part 1

Home made french fries are hard to beat but they are not without flaws:

1. To make them properly you need to plan a couple of hours in advanced
2. So many steps can make you run around your kitchen like a crazy person if you’ve got other things going on and want to time things to be done at the same time
3. Messy!  From oil splattering on the oven to multiple pans, racks and bowls all needing to be cleaned

No, eating deep fried, oil covered pieces of potato in itself is not a flaw – in case you haven’t noticed, this isn’t a food nutrition site!

The standard way of making fries is this:

1. cut your Russet potatoes and place in bowl of water
2. rinse out the water, fill back up, move them around and rinse again
3. fill once more with water and top with a layer of ice cubes and let the fries sit out for about an hour
4. Heat oil to 300-325F
5. Dry the fries and cook them in batches for a few minutes and drain on a rack trying to keep them in one layer
6. Wait about 30 minutes
7. Heat oil to 375F
8. Fry until they look the way you want them to

It’s not the end of the world in terms of work involved and the end result is great but if you just feel like having a side of fries with your meal and don’t want fuss or mess then there must be an alternative that doesn’t involve you getting in your car.

Enter, Joel Robuchon.  This french chef was given the “Chef of the Century” title so he knows his stuff.  He is said to be the one who discovered a quick, hassle free way to fry french fries but in reality he was just the most well known person to have had someone quote him on the technique.  The following is my 3rd and most successful attempt at hassle free fries:

Cut your potato into apx 1/3 inch thick fries

Next I added some cornstarch.  This is something I changed up because I wanted the outside of the fry to be, and stay, more crispy.  Cornstarch should do the trick

After mixing that up so that they are coated I put the fries in an empty cast iron pan

Next I cover with room temperature oil, just enough so that your fries are all submerged.  I used Vegetable Oil which is usually a good choice.  I’m guessing this would be pretty awesome using something like melted duck fat – I’ll save that for another time.  Just a little note, don’t throw away your oil.  Strain it and put it in a container and either store in the fridge or in a cabinet and you can reuse it many times and in fact, used oil fries better than fresh.  There is a scientific reason for this but I’ll spare you the details.

So far pretty easy right?  Next step, turn the heat to medium-high on your burner and wait…

Pretty tough, right?  That took about 15 minutes.  About half way through I use a metal spatula to move them around a bit but for the most part you just leave them alone and take them out when they seem done.  There will be basically no oil splatter, very little fried oil smell and an empty sink!

Take them out, drain them on paper towels and then season

That’s some sad looking ketchup, I’m going to make my own one of these days, but you get the idea.  They look a little greasy but they weren’t and in fact tests have been done that showed that fries cooked this way absorb about 1/3 less oil than fries cooked the standard 3 stage way.

Taste wise they are very good.  Nice and crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside although I think they could have been cut a bit bigger.  Are they as good as the original method?  Well no, but it’s close and each time I have made them they have gotten better.  The cornstarch really worked here – these fries stayed crispy.  Well at least for the 3 and a half minutes they were on the plate before me and my daughter chowed them down.

Next time I will cut them just a little thicker so that the soft potato centers are a little more substantial and I’ll give Yukon Gold potatoes a shot.  I’ll post part 2 once I have these things perfected.  Until then, give these a try – you’ll never go back to frozen fries.

Roy