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Step 5Second fry
When ready to serve the French fries, reheat the oil to 350oF (175 C).
Transfer the potatoes to the hot oil and fry again, stirring frequently, until you like the way they look, 1-5 minutes. I like em almost burnt, so I left them in pretty long.
Transfer to paper towels again and sprinkle with seasoning to taste. Serve immediately.
So so very yummy.
p.s. special thanks to my lovely assistant who took over 200 pictures for this instructable.
Transfer the potatoes to the hot oil and fry again, stirring frequently, until you like the way they look, 1-5 minutes. I like em almost burnt, so I left them in pretty long.
Transfer to paper towels again and sprinkle with seasoning to taste. Serve immediately.
So so very yummy.
p.s. special thanks to my lovely assistant who took over 200 pictures for this instructable.
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Potatoes and Ice Water
Many recipes for French Fries (as well as other potato recipes) recommend soaking the potatoes in cold water for thirty minutes. The rationale is that some of the starch is leached away and helps the texture of the potato, but this simply doesn't make any sense. The starch on the outside edges of the cut potatoes may wash away, but significant starch or nutrients are not likely to be changed. There may be some slight change in the moisture content of the potato, however.
It is more likely that the inside of the chilled potato takes longer to cook. Consequently, the outside will be crispy and the inside soft and moist. This recipe was tested both ways (with and without soaking the cut potatoes in ice water) and the soaked potatoes were lighter and fluffier on the inside and crispier on the outside. (From: http://www.drgourmet.com/recipes/extras/frenchfries.shtml)
We'd soak the potatoes whole for an hour or so and then slice them into fries and put them in new water where they'd rest for about 3 hours in a cool cellar. After they were done here, we'd take them up to our big ol' sinks and rinse them off for a good 5 minutes. Even in the last step, you can see the starch foaming in the water!
Aside from the soak/cut/soak/rinse method we used, the only major difference was that we only used suet (beef fat) for frying, and the old guys who had been running the place since they were teenagers insisted that the fries be cool before they were fried a second time.
Our fries were good enough to be rated best in the city for something like 10 years in a row by the readers of our local entertainment magazine. People line up around the block, killing off their whole lunch hours to get at these things, even in the dead of winter!
Good job, schoochmaroo!