French Fries, Poutine, Pommes Frittes

[Skybird]

Years ago we had a thread about how to make pizza. And another thread how to make a real good steak. I confess I am very good at both, and then some other kitchen stuff as well. :D

You can imagine that for this reason it hurts my ego even more severely that I terribly fail in making something that most would claim to be an almost primitive dish, something so simple and easy that it is not even worth to be talked about: Pommes Frittes, French Fries, Poutine, Fritten - whatever you call it in your part of the world. I mean the fried potatoe thing in stick format, not the sauces and dips.

I love it, but I am desperate, for I just don't know in or out anymore.

In Germany, we serve Fritten (or Pommes, as we call them, pronounced not French but German) usually with nothing but white salt and then either mayonnaise or tomato ketchup or both. This is by far the most common format of French Fries over here, at best the Fritten get accompanied by Currywurst, and more ketchup and curry powder. I love it (the Pommes, not the Currywurst).

But I just dont get it done right in my own cuisine. The pommes get the proper colour and looks of being nicely fried, being crispy, soft in the inside but not soaking with oil, the outside harsher, crispy, like chips, the single stick not soft and wobbly, but stiff.

Mine are soft and like jelly, they have the right looks, but the consistency is terrible.

I tried various sorts of potatoes, floury and firm ones. I always fry twice. I tried longer times, and I tried shorter times. I varied the pause between both frying sessions. I controlled the temperature of the oil, that it indeed is what the thermometer says.

For exmaple, I may cut the potatoes into sticks and put them in water for hours, change the water several times. Then i dry them on a towel, I even tried to warm them up in the micro for a minute so that the drop in temperature in the deep fryer is not so huge when I put them in. I may do a first frying (blanching at 150-170°C, for 5-7 minutes), then take them out and rest for 5-8 minutes, and bringing the oil up to 190°C, then fyring them for another 3-4 minutes. After the blanching, the potatoe stick have turned slightly yellow, almost not visible, and after the second frying they are golden, brown, toasty, they look crispy, indeed they look almost perfect - but they are not perfect, they are like rubber foam, soft, wobbly, like jelly or soft rubber.

I use a Tefal Oleoclean 8040, which in America gets sold as T-Fal EZ Easyclean and some other names. A perfect device with inbuild oil-filtering, btw, if you are planning to get a deep fryer, definitely check this one out, it is great, I use it since one and a half year. The minimum oil is 2.8 liters, maximum 3.5 liters, I am usually at around 3.3. I change the oil after 6-9 frying sessions depending on the oil quality and the kind of food recently fried, the oil filtering allows to use it slightly longer than if you would not filter the oil ever. The recommended ammount of pommes used for one frying session is 600 gr, the possible maximum is given to be 1200 gr, what I put in usually is in the range around 700 gr.

Has anyone any idea what I do wrong, where I go amiss? Do you fry your own french fries at home, with fresh potatoes, not frozen industrially prepared stuff where the first blanching has been done in the factory already? If so, how do you do it, what is your recipe to get them done properly: dry and crispy and dark golden on the outside, soft and non-oily in the inside?

I really don't know what else to try, I just don't get it.

And it really means a big blow to my chef-ego to ask this. :) Its my culinaric Waterloo, my proof of defeat, my ultimate failing dans la cousine.

I mean: helphelphelphelphelp!

[Commander Wallace]

I make my own pizza and spaghetti sauce which is authentic Italian. I start by slicing fresh garlic very, very thin and saute' them in olive oil. Using that as a base, I build the sauce from there. I let the sauce simmer all day on relatively low heat. I make a lot of it and freeze everything in serving size containers.

I have fried sliced fresh potato's and fried them but generally, this is unhealthy. You might want to consider a oil-less air fryer. It uses little to no oil and can fry food like chicken, fries or fish as well as a grease fryer. They come in different sizes and configurations and a number of them have adjustable heat ranges for a slower cook. This method generally gives you a more thorough cooking job and consistency. The best part is you can indulge in your favorite fried food recipes without the calories and artery clogging fats.

You can cook other things in the oil-less fryer including steak. It generally cook everything pretty fast depending on the settings. Give it a try and see if this doesn't make you a kitchen, culinary hero. :Kaleun_Thumbs_Up:


Here is a link to the oil-less fryer.

https://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=greaseless+fryer&tag=geminimobiles-20&index=aps&hvadid=30274179979&hvqmt=e&hvbmt=e&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_4xe184iyrr_e

[Skybird]

I know these hot-air-blowers. They work but take much longer time, and the lack of oil means the taste of the food, especially potatoes, is different. Fat and oil are a strong carriers of taste and aromes, you cannot replace them. ;) Air-fried pommes are not the same like oil-fried pommes.

It must be possible to do good french fries in an classic deep fryer - I mean everybody does it, and even gets paid for it. Many even do it in fry-pots.

French Fries, properly done, are much less oily than most people think, for the surface of the potato slice or stick has sealed off before oil can be soaked into the inside. That is the first of two purposes of blanching.

The bigger problem than fat is that the starch in the potatoes gets met by much higher heat than if you would just cook the complete, uncut potatoe. The chemical process turns the starch into a form of it that is far mroe hyper-glycaemic than starch treated at lower temperatures.

The debate on acrylamide I ignore, the original Swedish study triggering it in the 90s has been so ridiculous that they withdrew it from publications due to severe methodological flaws and errors. Of around 1000 follow-on studies trying to replicate the Swedish claims in the following 13 years or so, not a single study was able to replicate or verify the Swedish claims. Not one in almost one thousand! Instead, over half of these studies showed a funny correlation: that people being aweare of acrylamide and running diat habits trying to avoid acrlyamide, showed more cases of cancer.

Ecotrophology - the new religion today. And every week a new messiah shows up on the stage and announces his new gospel. - Be modest in your consummation habits, and maybe consider to not eat anything at all every fourth day or so, that is my habit. In the end, there is no point in dying healthy.

---

I assume that my temperatures tried for blanching potatoes, or the times, are wrong.

However - recipes, guys, I want recipes. Timings. Temperatures. Whatever. Bring it on!

[Commander Wallace]

My fries came out well when I fried them. As with anything fried, I tend to put what I fried in a basket with paper towels to blot out and absorb excess oils. It may well just be a matter of longer cooking times. Experiment with it. As far as the taste of the oil-less fryer, I like them if you season the chicken or whatever else you cook in them.

You can always bake fries as well in a counter top convection oven as well, to the consistency you like. I sometimes bake mine and put the oven on broil the last minute or so to make them crispy.

[Skybird]

If you go to a quick-food stand by the side of the street and order french fries - do they do them like this? No. They put them into the oil, they take them out, and if they are good, they do this twice, and there you go. Golden crispy "Fritten", not dripping with oil.

Thats how it should be done, and many videos on Youtube show it like this, too, they only vary their timings. Point is - no matter what their timing is and how it varies - they always seem to get crispy pommes. Some blanch for 4 minutes, others for 10 minutes. Some say 150°, others say No, 180 from all beginning on. Some say normal potatoes, some say, no, red potatoes. One gets dizzy!

I was fearing that maybe my device does not work and the oil does not get hot enough. But I tested it with a thermometer. The fryer meets the set temperature quite well, and is also quite fast in heating it up when the oil temperatur dropped after putting food in.

[fireftr18]

Our friends in England are the experts on this. They call them chips, and they are the best I ever had. Maybe they can give us all some advice. I think beer or ale is involved.
:Kaleun_Cheers:

[Gargamel]

I made fries tonight. Chopped up a couple potatoes, leaving the skin on, dumped them in the fryer at 350f for 6 minutes. Bammo. Fries. You can cut them thinner or thicker for crispiness, or cook them a little longer for a crisper shell. Let them drain for a few minutes, then salt as desired.

You mentioned poutine in the title, but no made no mention of it in the post. Poutine is not another name for fries, but a complete dish. It is a Canadian delicacy. In college we used to drive the 20 minutes to the Messina Bridge in New York and cross over the Seaway to a truck stop just for the Poutine and beer, Neither of which we could obtain legally in the US. Of course, customs never believed us that we just ran over the border on a friday night just for dinner, got searched for alcohol quite a few times, but we were smart enough not to have anything. Now the trips to Montreal.......

[Gargamel]

Our friends in England are the experts on this. They call them chips, and they are the best I ever had. Maybe they can give us all some advice. I think beer or ale is involved.
:Kaleun_Cheers:

I never saw a difference between English Chips and a good hoem cut fry. They're just thick fries.

Spent a month in England many years ago, and took my girl out to a nice restaurant right off Piccadilly Circus. We were really weirded out as the hostess kept coming around, asking if we wanted more "complimentary French Fries". It was just a plate of standard shoe string fries.

I was also weirded out by the beds had no sheets, just duvets. No phones in the hotel rooms (and we were just across the river from Parliament). And that you need to look right when crossing the street.

[Reece]

Potato wedges are nice!!:yep:

https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/1294/spiced-potato-wedges

http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/oven-baked-wedges/428c3118-0025-4804-a834-a75d505472d0

[Obltn Strand]

Cook the potato pieces first in boiling water so that they become flaky. Take them outside/put in refrigerator/sink in cold water in open minigrip bag and allow to cool. This is to remove moisture and moisture is your enemy. Cut temperature by 20-30 degrees with both frying times and also cool them down after first frying time.

[Catfish]

I never saw a difference between English Chips and a good hoem cut fry. They're just thick fries.

Yep, same here. Easy to make those at home. But Skybird asked for the perfect »pommes frites«, and this seems to be an art form lol
No really, it is not easy. Best results yet were with frozen pre-fabricated ones, directly put into the oven.
I will try to follow Oltn Strand's tips next time.

OT
[...] was also weirded out by the beds had no sheets, just duvets. No phones in the hotel rooms (and we were just across the river from Parliament). And that you need to look right when crossing the street."Reisen bildet". We were always surprised about England :03:
From 70-year old music apparatus 'machines' in the hotel apartment to the aforementioned sheets and duvets, to putting loads of Kardamon on a sweet continental(?) pudding. Prices were very high though, for dining as for hotel or "Bed and breakfast". Foreign restaurants were good and cheaper though (and indian ones always excellent). The smell that developed in the 1300 Triumph Herald we drove around was awful, but cannot be blamed on the english cuisine. No pork pie is being made with the expectation to last for ten or more weeks in warm and wet conditions under the driver's seat, obviously forgotten by its previous owner. And of course we had our share of near-misses on those pesky roundabouts when looking for the wrong direction :haha:
But it was always great, from nice people to interesting experiences of all kinds, very positive. I am sure we had some germn lunatic bonus though.

from a friend of mine: "I take it that after brexit, and when things go on, we will be able to visit England in say 15 years with an entry fee, to visit an island that has turned into being a museum" :hmmm::D

[Skybird]

I made fries tonight. Chopped up a couple potatoes, leaving the skin on, dumped them in the fryer at 350f for 6 minutes. Bammo. Fries. You can cut them thinner or thicker for crispiness, or cook them a little longer for a crisper shell. Let them drain for a few minutes, then salt as desired.

You mentioned poutine in the title, but no made no mention of it in the post. Poutine is not another name for fries, but a complete dish. It is a Canadian delicacy. In college we used to drive the 20 minutes to the Messina Bridge in New York and cross over the Seaway to a truck stop just for the Poutine and beer, Neither of which we could obtain legally in the US. Of course, customs never believed us that we just ran over the border on a friday night just for dinner, got searched for alcohol quite a few times, but we were smart enough not to have anything. Now the trips to Montreal.......
I learned about poutine in Cologne where I had some business dates in the past three m onths. There is one restaurant that specialises in poutine and they practically do not serve anythign else.

If you happen to be in Cologne or Düsseldorf or Aachen, and like poutine or fries, go there, the ambient atmosphere and looks of the place is very nice and if you like poutine, it should be heaven. Personally, these heavy sauces and cheese and plenty of ingredients over the fries - its not really my thing. Too hefty. I prefer the classic German way: white salt, and mayonnaise or ketchup, period.

http://ais.kochbar.de/masters/715410/960x540/frittenwerk-eroeffnung-was-ist-an-diesen-pommes-so-besonders.jpg

Learn more:
http://frittenwerk.com/

In principle the classic base form of Poutine Quebec is fries, cubes of fresh (wet) Mozarella cheese on top of it, and then dark gravy. You either like it, or you don't. I hear that canadians are crazy for it, but I cannot understand that. :) Of course, plenty of variation possible. The link I gave shows some imiges of various poutines they serve in these restaurants. Looking they do good.

[Skybird]

Cook the potato pieces first in boiling water so that they become flaky. Take them outside/put in refrigerator/sink in cold water in open minigrip bag and allow to cool. This is to remove moisture and moisture is your enemy. Cut temperature by 20-30 degrees with both frying times and also cool them down after first frying time.
You mean the second frying at LOWER temperature than the first blanching? Practically everybody says its right the other way around?!

Well, quite counter-intuitive, but I make a mental note of that.

[Jimbuna]

Chips, one of the easiest foods to cook but I suppose not if you're experiencing problems...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cv0mYyJA8I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJfxazUkQ84

[Skybird]

If it would be working so reliably as in your videos, I would not ask in this thread, Jim. ;) First video btw pretty much is like we would do "Bratkartoffeln" in Germany: pan, plenty of fat or oil, just at the very end maybe ad some cut onion and garlic, white salt and black pepper, I also add rosmary and thyme.

I did more research the past hour, and one thing I learned is that I base on a wrong asusmnption sicne 50 years :), and obviously many understand it wrong as well: for some reason I always thought floury potatoes have lots of starch and firm potatoes have less. My mother also fell for this error, as well as my neighbour and friends of mine. It is exactly the other way around, and if I ever would have given it a second thought, this absolutely makes perfect sense. Where should the solid structure of firm ones come from, if not from more starch? But one tries hard to get starch out of it before frying, you wash the cut potatoes, you let them water some time, just to clean off the starch. So - I now go and get myself some soft, floury potatoes (which I usually avoid) with less starch.

I also read a tip that indeed you boil them before frying - and that you should use not just water, but also some vinegar in it. There is some chemistry magic going on with the vinegar, and the slices/cuts/sticks after 5-10 minutes should get cooled in cold water and then dried again before frying.

The experimenting monster has been awakened. I either succeed until I make perfect Fritten - or I vomit myself to death. This now is a fight for life and survival. :arrgh!: Kocht sonst die tollsten Sachen, aber schafft keine simplen Fritten - ich blamier mich ja bis auf die Knochen...

[Jimbuna]

Well, in all honesty, we no longer have a deep fat fryer in the Buna household, preferring to eat oven chips. These are inferior to the deep fat fried variety but we feel the added safety element is a price worth paying.

In the past, we never carried out any of the operations above simply....

Buy large potatoes.
Peel then chop/cut and put into a bowl of water for an hour or so.
Drain thoroughly then put straight into a pan of hot oil.
Wait ten minutes or so or until you can see the chips turning crispy brown.
Remove from pan and drain the oil off....then hopefully you have successfully made a portion of chips.

Works every time here but I'm seriously puzzled why not at your end :hmmm:

[Obltn Strand]

You mean the second frying at LOWER temperature than the first blanching? Practically everybody says its right the other way around?!

Well, quite counter-intuitive, but I make a mental note of that. No no no no cut temperatures during BOTH times

soak-rinse-boil-cool-fry-cool-fry-serve...

[Skybird]

If there is a problem, this guy's attitude is how to tackle it :D :

http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/05/the-burger-lab-how-to-make-perfect-mcdonalds-style-french-fries.html

Reminds me of myself, I once did the same systematic laboratory thing with pizza, doing 20-30 pizzas in one week until I had the perfect dough recipe and method to bake it in an ordinary household oven.

For some reason, this guy is famous and I am not. :06: I must have jumped some important step... Maybe maintaining a blog...

P.S. Disadvantage: the method is time-intensive and anything but practical. Maybe one is better advised to indeed take industrial frozen pommes frites of a good brand and quality, and use these. The first three of four working steps (cooking, blanching, freezing) then have been taken out of the formula for the home chef. I mean consider all the time and the enormous energy for just one portion of french fries if you are a single - it does not calculate well.

[Jimbuna]

Sky, I spoke to a friend the other day, someone who cooked in restaurants in many countries, Germany included and he reckons the basic problem is the quality of the German potato.

He went on to explain in precise detail but I wasn't able to fully understand but I know starch or possibly the lack of (can't remember which) was part of said explanation.

[Skybird]

Starch indeed has much to do with it - and sugar, and water. I tried several different ones, also foreign ones, Egyptian ones (considered by many to be amongst the best you can get). In German, the criteria to look out for are "mehligkochend" versus "festkochend", I am not certain I translated that correctly as "floary" versus "firm".

The recipe in the link above also focusses on reducing starch and sugar in the potato. The sugar is what makes the fried pommes turning brown too early and too much. Too much water inside is what prevents the pommes to become crispy while no more water is inside. Or you fry too long and get the feared "hollow horror" of a fried pommes - fries that have big holes inside that contain no more potato at all, only hot air or hot oil.

I'm back to two more experiments later this week. I'll file in the report log. I'm started to become fascinated by how complex the intricacies of this at first glance simple problem are. Nobody usually would consider that doing french fries manually from fresh potatoes are such an adventure to do correctly, most people think: clean them, cut them, water them, frie them twice, and you are done. The result maybe can be eaten - but whether it really is the perfect french fry, soft and aromatic inside, crispy and light golden on the outside, and containign much less fat than is usually feared - that is something very different.

Fench fries are what separates the chefs from the boys. :sunny:

Serious, and no joking: don't eat in any restaurant where they cannot do good french fries, believe me - I worked in a kitchen for six weeks 20 years ago, it was terrible and the only job that I quit early in my life, admitting that I was unable to cope with it. And it was not even a specially complicated kitchen, just a beer garden.

Never again that horror for me. Before I go back to that I would volunteer to return to Turkey or Algeria, unpaid for. :arrgh!:

[Skybird]

V-Day!!!

Thanks to everybody, including Obltn Strand, Jimbuna, and everybody else who mentioned to cook them before frying them, I finally can proudly declare total and complete victory in my quest for the pefectly fried "Fritte" made from fresh potatoes. The recipe from that kitchen laboratory I linked to somewhere above, also helped tremendously.

I had two more test runs yesterday. By looks, both results were absolutely identical and PERFECT, but in the first run the inside of the fries were not correct, were greasy, too much moisture still in there. I then cooked them a bit longer in the second attempt of the day, and did the rest the same way, and then it was the best outcome that I could imagine. Its perfect, seriously, I cannot imagine how I could want pommes frites to be any better.

But in ordinary everyday life, the recipe is very unpractical. Nevertheless, if you want the PERFECT French Fries, this is how I did it:

---

Your adversaries are: water, starch, sugar. These you have to overcome on your way to kitchen glory.

Get "mehlig kochende" potatoes, I translate that as "floary". I mean the boiled potato is of the very soft, fluffy kind, not of the dense, hard, firm kind. These "floury" potatoes have less starch, after you peeled them and cut them into sticks and put them into water, you want to have less foam instead of more, the foam indicates the presence of starch. The less foam, the better.

My potatoes were tiny, unfortunately, that explains why the sticks are that short on the following photos.

When you cut them, be mindful about avoiding thin wedges and slices that are much different in size than most of the sticks. I used 750g of potatoes each time, but when I was done, the sticks had a weight around 550-600g. That gives you an idea.

Water the sticks, and water them twice or three times, leave them in water with 2 tablespoons of white vinegar or vinegar essence per liter. The water takes care of the starch. The vinegar takes care of the sugar. Two enemies already being targetted that way.

Get cooking water boiling, again put in two tablespoons of vinegar per liter (but no salt!). Don't worry, you do not taste the vinegar in the readied fries. Then cook the sticks, minimum 12 minutes, better 14-15 minutes maybe. It depends on the thickness of your sticks, and the potatoes you use. You want to not end up with finished ordinary boiled potatoes like you would serve them now for the meal on your table, but you want to stop the cooking process 2-3 minutes before the potatoes are totally done. So look at your sticks, estimate the time you would cook them if you would want to serve them as ordinary boiled potatoes, then substract 2-3 minutes - that is your target time.

Spread the potatoes so that they can dry and cool down. You want them to be totally dry and totally cool, so you have half an hour of a timeout at least here, if not longer.

Then prepare the fryer, 190°C. Blanch the potato sticks for 1 minute - not longer. Get them out, allow them to lose the oil on the surface, so spread them on a towel or kitchen tissue or whatever you have. Cool them down, when they have room temperature, put them into your deep freezer. You can pause now as long as you want, but three hours maybe is the minimum to achieve a minimum of freezing indeed.

Water inside the sticks will form crystals when freezing, and these crystal will break up what is left in structure, allowing any remaining moisture to exist easier when the final frying is done. Thats why you do the freezing.

You now have what you usually would get when buying industrial bags of readied pommes frites/french fries in the supermarket, just without salt so far. That is good, it saves your oil in your fryer.

https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/32818868/IMG_2285.jpg (https://www.pic-upload.de)

The rest is easy. When you need them, fry them for 3.5 minutes at 190°C. Do not fry portions bigger than 400gr, else the oil cools down too much. My fryer is a bit bigger than the usual 2l devices, using 3.5l of oil instead, so I could afford to put in what I had in one rush. Do not use lower temperatures for fears of "acrylamide", that is a nonsense debate, a new ecotrophological cult basing on a terribly flawed and meanwhile withdrawn Swedish "study" from the 90s. Forget it.

What you get by the end of all this, is what I consider to be the perfectly looking french fry:

https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/32818872/IMG_2286.jpg (https://www.pic-upload.de)

Note that they are golden, nicely golden, but have no brown or burnt marks. That means: no sugar that caramelised early. And that is good! Brown pommes are wrong pommes. You accept - even want - that in Bratkartoffeln, but not in pommes frites.

Salt them while they are still oily, else the salt does not stick to the dried sticks, after salting them then do your trick to get off most of the oil, I do like this:

https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/32818878/IMG_2287.jpg (https://www.pic-upload.de)

The inside should be fluffy, not oily or wet at all. That is the trick of perfectly fried pommes: their reputation is that they are extremely unhealthy because of the fat. But if you prepare them correctly, the oil will not get into the inside at all, and what sticks to the outside can be gotten rid of for the most. The inside should be equal to what you expect boiled potatoes (in German: not Pellkartoffeln, but Salzkartoffeln) to be. No oil, no water, no holes.

https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/32818880/IMG_2290.jpg (https://www.pic-upload.de)

Salt is another health concern. Easy to deal with it: use less salt, and your conscience feels better.

The remaining health concern is that of hyperglycaemic versus hypoglycaemic carbohydrates. That is about the heat by which the CH get treated. The higher the temperature you use, the more hyperglycaemic the carbohydrates become, which is not favourable. This cannot be helped, of all cooking methods, simple boiling of the unbroken potatoe with unhurt skin is the most positive and frying in superhot oil is the most negative method. Live with it, or leave.

https://www2.pic-upload.de/img/32818883/IMG_2291.jpg (https://www.pic-upload.de)

I recommend not only ketchup or mayonnaise, but also this superb sauce by Heinz, which in Germany is sold under the name "Tomaten-Cayenne", but also seems to be sold as "Andalusian Sauce" or "Spanish Tomato Sauce" (please correct me if I am wrong. It is no ketchup, it is very creamy, mild, no sourish taste, a bit of tomato and a very mild, pleasant hotness, not too much. It is perfect to grilled meat, chicken, fish - and potatoes. I kill for it. While it looks like "Cocktail Sauce" you use for salad or fried Calamaris, it has nothign to do with it.


https://www.edeka24.de/out/pictures/generated/product/1/480_480_90/heinztomatencayennesauce.jpg
Bon appetit! I recommend to simply find a good branch of industrial prepared french fries. The above procedure is quite time consuming for just a quick snack - this snack is anything but "quick" :) . Do not forget: frozen pommes need to warm up a bit so that you can free them of the frozen water on their surface. Water and boiling oil - it just does not work well together.

[Jimbuna]

Free samples on my doorstep, by post, first thing tomorrow morning...or it didn't happen :)

[Skybird]

I have just chosen the best-looking stick from the bunch that I could find, put it in an envelope and sent it. I hope it reaches you in time. Wait for a greasy, oily mail arriving. If it doesn't arrive, the mailman probably could not resist and has stolen it for himself, sorry.

[Skybird]

Now that I have gotten the fries out of the way, I'd be interested in learning about people's favourite ways of doing poutine toppings.

I understand that the base recipe simply is cubes of Mozarella cheese (fresh, wet) and dark gravy on top of the fries.

But there certainly are more variations, eh? C'mon! The picture on the first page is evidence.

[Jimbuna]

I have just chosen the best-looking stick from the bunch that I could find, put it in an envelope and sent it. I hope it reaches you in time. Wait for a greasy, oily mail arriving. If it doesn't arrive, the mailman probably could not resist and has stolen it for himself, sorry.

Vielen Dank :salute:

Not a big fan of poutine is the Buna household (more a Canadian speciality) but many a recipe available here:

https://www.google.co.uk/#q=poutine+recipe&*

[Reece]

Thanks Skybird, I am going to give it a go, one question, when removing from the freezer do you drop them into the hot oil frozen or wait till they thaw?:hmmm: I assume the latter.

[Skybird]

Since I had not frozen them for long time, they had no chance to build ice on their surface, so I took them out, spread them on a towel for maybe 5 minutes, used a kitchen tissue then to dry them (not much there was to dry), and then put them into the fryer.

If they had been in the freezer for days and weeks, they probably maybe would have had more ice.

If you have plenty of foam and bubbles in the fryer, then there is too much water in it. In this case it also becomes very noisy and you should hear loud popping sounds. If the food to fry is dry, it is a much more silent and less violent affair. Also, less smells.

You also save the oil if avoiding water in the food, the oil has a life cycle of a chemical kind, not just the aromes it picks up, but also the chemical changes due to the repeated heating up and cooling down, and the total time it stayed hot. Filter every time you used it. Do not fry fish until you want to change the oil anyway. Prepare to change the oil after 4-8 uses, I estimate. It depends on the food you work in the fryer, clean potatoes and filtering the oil after every use obviously is less critical than frying chicken and meat, coated food, dough and spiced food. Fish is a K.O. - I do it only when the oil is needed to be replaced anyway.

Fresh oil in first use does not work ideal, btw. The oil should be a little bit "dirty" (=old), then it works best - until it becomes too dirty. Then its game over, and the food will start to soak it up, due to the changed chemical and physical characteristics of it.

Regarding fryers, one should not be stingy regarding oil changes.

[Skybird]

Since I am at it, a tip for a good fryer. The by far best device for the private household I have ever seen, is this, I use it since over a year and I cannot praise it enough. The guy in the video alkks much and does little gfx, but nicely illustrates the device and does a good presentation of the clever details of it. I can confirm that these tiny little details work great and really perfect, and make all the difference: frying now is a much less smelly affair, and I am able to fry anything without creating a mess from oil and grease everywhere. It really is a very good device, gets sold under different names however. In Germany, T-Fal is Tefal, and the device is known here as Oleoclean 8040. In other countries it often is called Emerela, Easyclean or somehtign like that. the looks and the "drawer" cassetto for the oil make it unmistakable. And again: the system with internal filtering and that oil cassette works, and reliably so. I just love this thing.

Oil is at max temp of 190°C in very short time. Really, this thing is fast. In Germany it uses 2300 W. An earlier version from some years ago was known to use 3000 W, but many of these went up in flames, I read. The new one works faster while sucking less power. Interesting.

You can fry with the lid set up, I additionally put a charcoal filter layer on the internal metal filter. The difference is niot drmaatic, but present. It is imp0ortant for keepig the oil shut while it still is hot and not yet filtered and removed from the frying pot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljIXwi5drig

[mapuc]

I had a discussion about French fries with the owner of the local grill.

Said to her-I love fries, but I seem to getting it wrong in all its way-I have tried several types of oils. I have tried several types of fries. I have tried different temp. and the length of time the.

With no luck.......until I read your thread and how to make real and hopefully tasty and crispy French fries.

Thank you

Markus

[Skybird]

Munching is believing. :yeah:

Best fat option would be coconut, btw. But it also is extremely expensive, and that speaks against it.

Fat is better than oil. It has less unsaturated fatty acids.

I use peanut oil (I need oil due to the filtering mechanism). It lasts a bit longer than the other oils, and burns later than other oils.

Oil can have sufficiently high temperature tolerance (before it starts smoking or even burning), but in general has too high ammounts of unsaturated fatty acids. You want these if using the oil cold, for salad for example. But you do not want these when heating the oil up, these molecules then change into something disadvantagous (which is not acrylamide). Many people use sunflower oil, although it is not really recommendable (too many fatty acids). Better would be rapeseed oil, but it has a strong own taste, I do not like it. There are special, refined non-vergine olive oils that can be used as well, but again these come with a strong own flavour that you maybe do not want. Do not use, never, vergine olive oil.

Leaves peanut oil. Find a good deal, and then buy in bigger quantity. Probably the best compromise between all factors.

Not every oil declared for deep fryer use indeed is good, especially if it is mixed of different kinds of oils. Its a bit tricky to find something that is acceptable, and not too pricy (since you will need to change the oil every 5-8 uses). Amazon can be your friend here.