The Man Who Ate Everything - Jeffrey Steingarten [183]
Taste one or two. Drain and blot with paper towels. Salt the frites just before serving. Eat with strong Dijon mustard.
2. I tested several automatic electric fryers—two from DeLonghi, one from T-Fal, and my old Bosch (no longer available in the United States; it required all my cleverness to repair it), plus a manual French stove-top six-quart pan with a frying basket from Bridge Kitchenware in New York City. None of the electric deep fryers had accurate thermostats, but all worked tolerably well when a frying thermometer was immersed in the oil and a sharp eye was kept on the temperature. The DeLonghi Roto-Fryer, the most expensive, handsome, and solidly made, operates on the crazy principle that putting an angled, motorized basket inside the fryer to rotate the potatoes in and out of the fat not only saves on oil but also produces the crispest surface and lightest texture, which it most surely does not. The thermostat in the cheaper DeLonghi was off by as much as forty degrees Fahrenheit. Its consumer help line was busy for an entire day; I called every thirty seconds for ten hours through the magic of automatic redial. The T-Fal was well enough designed and efficient, and produced fine French fries, though it lacked the power or capacity of either my old Bosch or my stove-top pan and basket, plus thermometer. If I needed an electric deep fryer, I would choose the T-Fal. Otherwise, stick to a large pan and basket.
3. I tested all the brands of microwave French fries I could find in two supermarkets. None was satisfactory. She who invents the perfect microwave French fry will become the richest woman in the world. (Americans pay five billion dollars a year to consume five billion pounds of fries.) Several companies have gone broke in the attempt.
4. I tested all the brands of “oven-fries” I could find. None was better than barely palatable.
5. Frozen French fries come in many shapes and sizes. All have been par-fried in the factory and instruct you to finish them at home by deep-frying, baking, broiling, or even microwaving. Only deep-frying yielded acceptable results. Of all the brands, shapes, and sizes, only Ore-Ida’s Shoestrings (about three-sixteenth-inch square when fully cooked, like McDonald’s) gave good results; their texture was excellent, their taste less so. No brand was acceptable when cooked in the oven, under the broiler, or in the microwave. They were not French fries.
6. Most American cookbooks have you soak cut-up Idaho potatoes in ice water for at least a half hour, and sometimes overnight. This practice did not produce superior fries; but it does allow you to prepare your potatoes way in advance.
7. Washing the potatoes after cutting them is unnecessary. It does not make for crisper fries, as many recipes claim.
8. Blanching the potato strips—plunging them into boiling water for two minutes or more, as many good French cooks and cookbooks advise—is unnecessary with the starchy potatoes we use in this country or even with all-purpose or boiling potatoes. The goal of blanching is to remove sugar from the surface of the strips, making for lighter-colored fries; to stop enzyme activity in the surface, which would otherwise cause browning as soon as the potato is cut and the formation of unpleasant flavors later; and to gelatinize and seal the starch on the surface, decreasing oil absorption and making for crispier fries with a thicker crust. Waxy, lower-starch potatoes of the kind they use in France may require this assistance, but an Idaho-Burbank does not, unless it has been improperly stored at very low temperatures just above freezing so that lots of sugar has developed in the potato.
9. Raw potato strips will absorb more fat if their surfaces are moist. Dry them carefully.
10. French fries get soggier faster after you have sprinkled salt on them. Salt them only in the last seconds before serving.
11. French chefs disagree about how long you should wait between the first frying and the second. Letting the potatoes