If you ask my family about my cooking style they will indubitably exclaim that when I find something I really like I tend to do it ad nauseam. Having made pizza five times in the last two weeks, I am officially banned from making any more, at least for the balance of this week. Naturally then, my thoughts turned to one of my favorite yet forbidden foods…French fries. We fry something in this house maybe three times a year. Once a Summer its tempura zucchini flowers (one of the greatest things, EVER, as my daughter would say), and twice we make French fries, for real. The rest of the time, fries are always baked in the oven with only a hint of olive oil. They’re not bad, but…..
I’ve been reading about Tefal’s new Actifry device, which uses only a tablespoon of oil to produce apparently amazing fries. I saw one at our local foodie equipment emporium today, but at $400 with taxes it seemed somewhat outré. I decided to dedicate myself in the coming weeks to making a near-perfect baked French fry. Yes, I believe it can be done….”we have the technology” as they said about the Six Million Dollar Man. I will report back on the various methods and success/failure.
Tonight I am trying two long soakings of the raw cut potatoes, to remove as much starch as possible. Then a quick pan fry using only a tablespoon of olive oil, in order to brown them…and finally 30 minutes with the same pan (a Gastrolux ovenproof) in the oven at 450.
P.S. The end result was very good but lacked the crispness of a true french fry, resembling instead a roasted potato in the shape of a French fry. Not bad, but not close.