Left pic: triangle cut, peel on, not blanched, not floured or cornstarched, kept room temp, likely cooked too cool in a shallow pan to avoid smoke and having to clean up.
Right pic: peeled, square cut with a purpose-built slicer, blanched, floured, frozen then thawed before double-frying at 300 then 375; basket hanged to drain, tossed with fine salt.
Also phone camera vs DSLR with proper lighting and color correction
Great example of how a headline can instantly shift the narrative and bypass critical thought, like “The War in Gaza” or “Hasan shocked his dog”
I do both frys at 350
blanched
blanched is a whole ass process you can’t gloss over it you are doing a disservice to anyone who doesn’t know niche culinary terms but want to cook better chips.
Great example of how a headline can instantly shift the narrative and bypass critical thought, like “The War in Gaza” or “Hasan shocked his dog”
You should eat your own shit if you think glossing over fries and Gaza are comparable things. But then again you reinforce a point that you somehow intended and didn’t intend to make, at the same time. Great job. Or did you intend it entirely to make a point this whole time? 4d chess mate hats off.
You should have stopped at the camera thingy.
Criticising someone for comparing fries to Gaza, but in the same comment criticising their lack of detail on the blanching technique. We’re getting to Inception levels of irony.
dun… dun… dun-dun… dun-dun-dun…
Same, friendo. 🤪
Hmm.
Heat. And you have to soak the potatoes overnight in salty water and blanch them and let them cool and then cook them again at a higher temperature.
Basically this plus the type of potato you use makes a pretty big difference. In America the russet is common, in Britain something like Maris piper.
My cook is slightly different:
Brine them in 3-5% salt solution
Boil until very tender, like falling apart, chill for 30m
Fry at 275F until they have a crust but they’ll be very blond, chill for 30m - can store for a few days at this stage
Fry at 350F until desired color, season, serveIf you have a chamber vacuum you can speed this up significantly by pulling a vacuum a few times instead of chilling in between each step. Chilling is mainly to dry the exterior and the vacuum does the same thing. Gives a fry with fluffy interior and crisp exterior that maintains this texture even as heat drops (eg still somewhat decent even when cool but like any fry much better warm).
Alternatively boil the potatoes and rice them, then mix the resulting mash with corn starch (roughly 125g starch per kg mash). Roll the potato “dough” into a sheet desired fry thickness, cut into fries and dust with corn starch, and double fry again (375 for a few minutes to blanch, let oil recover and fries cool, 375 to brown). This is more akin to cheap frozen grocery store fries and Sysco fries you’d get at many restaurants. Potato selection doesn’t really matter with this
Roosters, 170C, lift them in and out, if the temp drops lift them out, when it’s back up put them back in. Once they’re pretty much cooked ramp the temp up to 190C to finish. Don’t overdo.
Doesn’t even need to be overnight.
I get the same results by blanching with baking soda, draining, then a short freeze.
blanching and then cooling? I’m trying that.
Apparently blanch then freeze (if you have the time) also extracts more water then just cooling to room temp does, as the forming ice crystals clump away from the potato mass that was trapping it.
Don’t throw frozen fries into hot oil, obviously
A lot of good home fries are double fried, too. Fry until cooked, let cool for a short time, fry until golden and crispy.
You can also do the pickle method, where you basically quick pickle/ferment the potato cuts overnight then fry them.
My memories are from a long ago kitchen where I dishpigged, we did the pickle method I guess. The cook explained it to me and I understood years later as I learned to cook.
I’ve never heard of this pickle method! Interesting.
Thanks for the tip!
You’re not supposed to use motor oil.
Dirty restaurant oil?
Oil is expensive - restaurants (even small ones) have had oil filtration since at least the 80’s.
I suspect fast food places had them even earlier.
Dirty oil cooks more slowly because it can’t maintain a higher temp without smoking. And what comes after smoke? Fire.
No reasonably-managed restaurant wants any of that. Oil fires are often business-ending events as they can take a building down with them, even with automatic fire suppression (which just means you’re closed for a month while the mess is cleaned up, the system is inspected and recharged, you get new equipment and wait for approval from the city/state to re-open) . Just go watch Mythbusters.
Also, potatoes on the left look like they have skin on, which will be darker.
I can easily produce the fries on the right with just a convection oven. As others have said it’s all about technique (and the appropriate potato).
You can produce deep fried potatoes by baking them? I’m interested to know more.
A powerfull convection oven, in small people call it air fryer, is extremely good at pumping heat into the thing baked. Which will make fries, because of their good surface to volume ratio, delectable.
At which point they still are not deep fried.
Yes, you will get a very similar result, but have less oil in it.
if you get frozen fries they come covered (and maybe soaked?) in oil, which when put inside extremely hot air will literally fry them anyways.
Left one appears to have left the skin on the potatoes.
Along with all the other advice
Left looks like it tastes better honestly
