French Fries Recipe

Intro: French Fries Recipe

Easy fast french fries made from scratch! These are the best fries you will ever have.
Season them to your taste - salt & pepper? Curry? Cayenne and chili powder. Fresh garlic. Grated parmesan. Spicy mustard. No matter how you trick out these chips, they're guaranteed delicious.

STEP 1: Materials

• Potatoes - 1 per person is more than enough!
• 1qt/ltr cooking oil - peanut oil is best
• Seasonings - I just used salt, but this is where you can get creative!
• Knife for cutting
• Colander for rinsing
• Pot for frying

STEP 2: Cut Potatoes

If you plan to keep the skins on (why wouldn't you!), scrub the potatoes well.

Cut potatoes into 1/4" fry shapes. Or fatter if you like "steak fries." I like em skinny and crisp!

Rinse cut potatoes in a large bowl with lots of cold running water and cover with water by and ice. Refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

STEP 3: Heat Oil

In a large pan (or an electric deep fryer), heat oil over medium-low heat.

If you have a candy thermometer (recommended), heat until the thermometer registers 325oF (165 C).

Make sure that you have at least 3 inches of space between the top of the oil and the top of the pan, as the oil will bubble up and could splatter when the fries are added.

STEP 4: First Fry

Drain ice water from cut fries and wrap potatos in a clean tea towel and thoroughly pat dry.

Increase the heat to medium-high and add fries, a handful at a time, to the hot oil.

Fry, stirring occasionally, until potatoes are soft and limp, about 10 minutes.

Using a slotted spoon or sieve, carefully remove fries from the oil and set aside to drain on paper towels.

Let rest for 10 - 20 minutes or so.

STEP 5: Second 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.

Comments

[karlmnz]

Hmmmm, can't wait to try it! What does the soaking/refrigerate in ice-water do? And what is better 30mins or 2 days soak?

[Pusat TuisyenM]

yeah!

[scoochmaroo]

The ice makes the sliced potatoes colder faster. Frying icy potatoes makes them crisper, but I have never been patient enough to wait 2 days to find out!

[WILL62]

Bags of FF you get at the store (Ore Idas) have already had the first "FRY" at the plant before they were packaged....... so I put my FFs on a cookie sheet after the 1st fry at 325 and put them in the freezer til frosty then I deep fry a 2nd time at 360 makes for super crunchers....be careful with the hot grease and frozen anything it may bubble up and burn ya....

[bgmiller]

Soaking them in water also helps removes some of the starch which also helps them crisp better (Supposedly). Here is some more info:
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)

[scoochmaroo]

Awesome tips!!

[macbutnot]

bgmiller:  about the starch, if you try this out, you'll actually see it happening.  I used to work in a restaurant which made around 800lbs (weight of the potatoes, not the finished product) of everyday by almost exactly this recipe.

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!

[SinAmos]

Peanut oil is the best. This must be emphasized.:)

[shwetak5]

[scoochmaroo]

I have a deep fryer now! Should I update?

[watchmania]

Why not, maybe another instructable page would be good. I would be very interested to know the results of using a deep fryer. Initially I bought a big frying cooker which includes frying nettles, but just after pouring the oil, I realized that this thing would be a cooking oil hog. So I went back to the frying pan, and my results suggests that you don't need full immersion to achieve optimum crispiness.

[watchmania]

Argh I leaked one of the super secret key of the immersion thing which was a result of 20+ cooking sessions!

[scoochmaroo]

Frying nettles? What's that like?
I got a small fryer, and have successfully filtered and reused the same oil for a while now. But I agree, it's kind of an unecessary accessory.

[watchmania]

80% of the chips on your first fry isn't dry enough. Now I understand that french fries is a super secret recipe with lots of technique and parameters to achieve crispiness with burnt-taste-free. You may want to experiment with the first fry. It heavily influences the final result.

[watchmania]

Argh! Last comment was 5 years ago. Where have I been?

[scoochmaroo]

Where have *I* been?? I need to update these photos, for real.

[akashas_mom]

After a long week tonight’s menu was a treat … home made french fries. The recipe works great! I originally soaked the fries about a week and a half ago so they were nice and ready. I used a large pot for the frying to make sure nothing popped out while the oil was hot. I also brushed up on my how to put out frying oil fires … better safe than sorry! On the second fry I went about five minutes than after straining & patting off as much oil as possible I seasoned with parsley, salt, & pepper. Nothing like comfort food to start the weekend right. :) (FYI having a wet, but not dripping, kitchen towel at hand to cover the frying pan should a fire start is the best recommendation I found online.) Enjoy!

[soupcon]

This recipe looks great,thank you! I wonder who took it fom whom though, http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/emeril-lagasse/perfect-french-fries-recipe/index.html
Thanks!

[vincent7520]

Perfect.
Double fry is the secret. That's how my grand mother cooked them and I can tell you for sure that it's not a trick from bad memory as this was the only thing that she cooked right (she was such a terrible cook ! …)
Love them ! …

[TheCritic]

Nice job, I also liked the comment about the beef fat. A lot of steak house restaurants use the same method using beef fat in the fryer. Gives them a GREAT taste. The only thing I do different is to par boil the fries till outside starts to get rough keeping the inside uncooked then freeze for twenty minutes to remove excess moisture from the potato. It makes for a much more crispy fry and it STAYS crispy longer. Then I do your Double fry method but the second temp I use is 380 degrees. For a really crispy ext on the fry, Try corn starch lightly sprinkled on the outside of the fry. The science behind this is that starch in the potato moves to the outside and that is what makes for the crunchy outer layer. By soaking the potatoes, it allows moisture absorbed by the potatoes to push MORE starch to the outside of the potato, by adding starch to the exterior makes for the crispiest fries. BK uses this method in there restaurants now. Nice instructable.