Cooking with Crosby Roamann: French Fries

I have been making French Fries since I worked at a fast food place in college — 300 pounds of potatoes a day! It’s a lot 🙂 Back then, I’d place each potato into a hand-crank machine that cut the fries into about 1/4″ strips. When I’d filled a bucket, we would start to fry them in batches, a couple scoops at a time, maybe 5-10 orders in each batch. This first frying was only to cook them through, not to finish them up. After about 3-5 minutes, we would transfer the parboiled potatoes to a second bucket, and when that second bucket was full, we’d cover it with a lid and into the fridge it would go to cool.

Now, as orders would come in during the day for fries, we would fry these parboiled potatoes from the bucket in batches of, again, about 5-10 orders at a time, depending on how busy we were during the day. Fry sequence #2 would be about twice as long as the first (just as long as it was necessary to get the right kind of color and crisp). It’s a ton of work, but it’s worth it.

At home, here is another version to try, with much better instructions (and explanations for why we cook french fries the way we do). It was developed for Kenji López-Alt’s The Food Lab — and you can find the recipe here at recipetineats.com. Relax, enjoy, fry up some good eats, and pop a glass of rosé!

• 2 lb Idaho russet potatoes
• 2 tbsp white vinegar
• 1 tbsp kosher salt
• 1-2 liters canola or vegetable oil

• Peel & Cut: Peel and slice the potatoes lengthwise into approximately 1/2″ slices. Then stack the slices on top of each other and cross-section them into 1/2″ rectangles (aka FRIES).
• Rinse: Transfer potatoes to a colander and rinse under tap water for 15 – 20 seconds.
• Heat oil: to 400°F in a deep fryer, or over medium high heat in a large stock pot.
• Simmer potatoes: Place fries in a large pot with 2 liters of cold water, vinegar, and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat then reduce stove to low so the surface is bubbling gently. Cook for 10 minutes more, then remove using a slotted spoon into a colander. Be gentle with the par-boiled potatoes now that they are soft and pliable.
• Dry 5 min: Spread the fries on 2 kitchen towel lined trays and let them dry for 5-10 minutes.
• Fry #1: working in batches, carefully add the potatoes to the fryer. Cook for 3-5 minutes, gently shaking the cage of the deep fryer if you are using one.
• Cooling bowl: transfer the soft and slightly blistered fries to a bowl and let them cool to room temperature, then cover them with plastic wrap and set them in the fridge for at least 30 minutes.
• Fry #2: When you are ready to prep dinner, bring the oil back to 400°F. Working in batches, carefully transfer the fries to the deep fryer cage and cook for another 5 minutes, until golden brown and crispy all over.
• Season & Serve: Rack the fries to a paper towel lined tray shaking them gently to break them up, and season with Maldon Sea Salt.