Potato is a wonderful thing, it is a well-known truth. And among the most delicious ways to cook it - frying thin slices in fat or boiling vegetable oil, french fries. It is served in restaurants of all levels and cuisines, and practical fast food is simply based on it.
However, to spoil it (french fries), the taste is not at all difficult, and the surest way in this direction is to use stale oil. Potato has the ability to readily absorb extraneous odors, so it easily attaches to itself the aromas of everything that was fried in oil before it.
It is safe to achieve a clean taste for french fries if we cook it ourselves at home and use fresh and pure vegetable oil.
How to cook french fries at home.
The easiest way is suitable only for those who have a home deep fat fryer, a special machine in which you can pour oil and fry French fries at a given temperature, or something else "deep-fried".
This, of course, is very convenient. Exactly set time and temperature allow you to get an excellent result, and a tightly closed lid protects against oil splashing. But ... This deep fryer needs to be stored somewhere, and it costs a lot.
Those who decide to do without a deep fat fryer cook french fries at home in a frying pan or in a casserole. The result is no worse, it is only important to accurately maintain the recipe and not neglect the little things.
French fries at home. Recipe in detail.
First of all, you need to peel the potatoes. Then dry each tuber with a towel. Do not use towels made of tissue paper. It is likely that they, having got wet, will stick to the potatoes and it will take time and patience to remove the scraps.
Then each tuber is cut into strips. It should not be very thin, we try to keep within the interval of 0.5-1 cm in thickness. The length will match the size of the tuber.
Now the oil. We pour it into a pan or in a cauldron. The amount of oil, of course, depends on the size of the dishes, but tentatively its consumption should not exceed a third of the bottle. We heat oil.
In a well-warmed oil, dip the potatoes in small batches. If it is a cauldron, then the oil should completely cover the slices, if the pan, then the layer of potatoes should be thin (1-1.5 of the thickness of the potato sticks). In a pan, the oil will not cover the potatoes completely, so you have to turn it over and make sure that it is evenly browned on all sides.
The amount of potatoes, laid within the same batch in a frying pan, should be small. Otherwise, the potato mass will lower the temperature of the oil and the dish will be spoiled. The party is brought to a golden yellow color, removed with a slotted spoon and put in a colander so that the glass has excess oil. At this time, the following batches of straw go into action.
Typically, fries are not cooked at home in large quantities, so there will be few lots. In other words, you don’t have to fry it for a long time.
After the potatoes are browned, the oil is warmed up again. Now all the potatoes are already placed in a container with oil and fried again until their color darkens to light brown tones. After that, the finished potatoes are thrown into a colander (let the oil drain) and served on the table. Needless to say, french fries are good while it's hot.
Spices and french fries at home.
French fries require the addition of spices, but the time and method of laying them in a dish causes a lot of controversy. Three main options are used and the commitment of the potato experts to their “path” is akin to political convictions.
Adherents of each method consider it the only right one, and are ready not to stand up to the price, defending their point of view.
We briefly describe all three methods and leave the right for the potato cookers to join the beloved “party”.
Completely prepared potatoes are sprinkled with salt and served on the table.
Potatoes are salted and pepper after the tubers are drained and cut into strips (that is, before it gets into the oil).
Salt and spices are added directly to the oil.
Here, in fact, is all about how you can cook french fries at home.