What if I told you you could make the same style of fries you get eating out, at home, with just a few simple ingredients? It’s easy! The secret to crispy, golden restaurant style french fries is in cooking the fries twice. Get them cooked through the first time, and get them crispy the second. But rather than use a lot of expensive oil, this method puts them in the oven for the first part of the cooking process.
You Will Need:
This makes enough fries for ten good servings
- 10 large russet potatoes, skin on.
- 1/4 cup vegetable oil
- non stick pan spray
- Water
Instructions:
- To start out, fill a large mixing bowl or pot with water and cut about 1/4 of an inch off the two long sides of each potato with your chef knife. Stand the potatoes up on the flat side and cut straight down. You want to be careful they don’t slip, its best to do this on a wood cutting board.
- Now continue cutting straight down lengthwise to make several flat slices of potato. The cuts should be about the thickness of your pinkie nail. Now lay the sliced potatoes down flat and cut across your previous slices lengthwise again to make sticks, this is called a baton cut in the restaurant industry and this is your basic french fry. As each potato is cut into batons, toss them in the water so they don’t brown. This also helps to remove some of the starch.
- First, preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Once all the potatoes are sliced, move them around in the water with your hands for a few minutes to help remove dirt and drain out some more of the starch, too much of this makes the potatoes kind of mushy.
- This rinsing is critical for crispy fries and its best to use cold water here. Drain the fries into a colander and shake around to make sure you get as much water as possible off of them. Now, put them back into your pot or bowl or whatever you’d like to use and add the oil. Toss it around by hand to coat each fry so they’re nice and glossy.
- Spray down two baking sheets with the spray oil generously and layer the fries over the two baking sheets. Don’t be tempted to season the fries here, any seasoning added now would just come off in the oil later. Place the sheet pans in the oven for ten minutes, then, using a pot holder, shake the sheet pans back and forth to move the fries so they wont stick to the pan. Cook for an additional 5 minutes or until light golden.
- Set the fries out to let them cool for a while, and then you can fry them for about 2-3 minutes in small batches in 350 degree oil. They’ll come out perfect every time. You can also freeze them for future use and this will help to remove moisture as well as preserving them, in fact, I recommend freezing them.
