Need a tasty side or just something to dip and snack? Check out this French fries recipe that tastes the best!
Jump to RecipeFrench fries are the uncontested champion of deep-fried food and with that, the prime standard bearer when it comes to pointing fingers at unhealthy food.
Although potatoes aren’t as bad as other starches like white flour or rice, after all it helped Europe beat scurvy, thanks to its vitamin C content when it was introduced from the New World but throwing them into unreasonable amount of saturated fats can degrade any superfood onto the nutritional level of deep-fried Mars Bars.
Before industrialized farming, no one would have thought of using enormous amount of edible fat or cooking oil for the sole purpose of preparing a dish then discarding the whole batch because of its unhealthiness.
Sure, people cooked using lard or pressed oil from olives but throwing out anything edible at the time when food security was meant to survive until the next harvest, was not really an option.
Not today though. When our biggest concern is to avoid long lines in the grocery store or be at home when food delivery arrives, we happily fill up our pots with a month worth of edible calories just to use it as a preparation method for another food.
Thanks to the obesity pandemic and the various cancer research studies, now many of us are aware of the dangers of deep frying and we seek alternatives that can save our oils-soaked starches so we can still eat it.
Roasting potatoes in convection ovens or investing in their little sibling, the air friers seems to be a working solution, reducing the amount of fat needed to prepare the dish, minimizing the calories we waste having them.
Sure, the simplest and healthiest solution would be to stop looking for replacement for something that is not good for us, but then how on Earth we could have our burgers without fries, not to mention what we’d use to dip into our sauces on the side.
Ingredients
- 1 lb / 500g Potatoes
- ⅞ cup / 200g Cooking oil (amount for nutrition purposes only, for actual frying we need as much oil as much covers the potatoes completely)
How to make French fires
- Best potatoes for frying are Maris piper, Sebago and Russet, among others, of course. Peel the potatoes or if we like them with skin on then rinse and clean them with possible contaminants and dirt.
- Cut the potatoes up into ⅓” / 1cm wide chunks. To avoid browning, keep the potatoes in cold water until start frying them. Some like to soak them in milk before frying for a couple of hours or even overnight for extra fluffiness.
- To create fluffy interior and crunchy exterior, precooking potatoes before deep frying is essential. This can be done in water or in oil. If we choose to precook the potatoes in oil then drain them from excess liquid to minimize the possibility of oil splattering all over the kitchen and burn us. Precooking oil temperature should be around 266°F / 130°C which results gentle bubbling of the oil when the potatoes placed in there.
- Remove the potatoes when it’s possible to break them in two easily, about 7 – 10 minutes. Place them apart as possible that will allow them to cool to room temperature faster.
- Heat oil to high 360°F / 180°C temperature which will result a crazy bubbling frenzy of the oil once the potatoes are placed in. Mind not to overcrowd the dish as it can painfully slow down the frying process. Submerge the precooked then cooled potato slices in the hot oil.
- Deep fry until the potatoes give a hollow sound upon tapping them with a cooking utensil and golden brown or preferred color is reached, about 3 – 5 minutes.
- Take the potatoes out then let them drip of excess oil.
- Season and serve immediately.
Enjoy!
Star this recipe!
French Fries Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 lb Potatoes
- ⅞ cup Cooking oil amount for nutrition purposes only, for actual frying we need as much oil as much covers the potatoes completely
Instructions
- Best potatoes for frying are Maris piper, Sebago and Russet, among others, of course. Peel the potatoes or if we like them with skin on then rinse and clean them with possible contaminants and dirt.
- Cut the potatoes up into ⅓” / 1cm wide chunks. To avoid browning, keep the potatoes in cold water until start frying them. Some like to soak them in milk before frying for a couple of hours or even overnight for extra fluffiness.
- To create fluffy interior and crunchy exterior, precooking potatoes before deep frying is essential. This can be done in water or in oil. If we choose to precook the potatoes in oil then drain them from excess liquid to minimize the possibility of oil splattering all over the kitchen and burn us. Precooking oil temperature should be around 266°F / 130°C which results gentle bubbling of the oil when the potatoes placed in there.
- Remove the potatoes when it’s possible to break them in two easily, about 7 – 10 minutes. Place them apart as possible that will allow them to cool to room temperature faster.
- Heat oil to high 360°F / 180°C temperature which will result a crazy bubbling frenzy of the oil once the potatoes are placed in. Mind not to overcrowd the dish as it can painfully slow down the frying process. Submerge the precooked then cooled potato slices in the hot oil.
- Deep fry until the potatoes give a hollow sound upon tapping them with a cooking utensil and golden brown or preferred color is reached, about 3 – 5 minutes.
- Take the potatoes out then let them drip of excess oil.
- Season and serve immediately.
What an interesting thing about transfat. Thanks mate. Now I’ll make some homemade fries. Wifey loves your photos.
Thanks for the feedback! Wifey will love the fries even better ;D