Getting your potatoes ready to be used in your favorite French fry recipes can be a chore. Luckily, you can take a few simple steps to ensure that your potato is perfect for your recipe.
An air fryer is a great way to make crispy fries without frying them in oil. However, the time it takes to cook them can vary from air fryer to air fryer. To ensure they get cooked evenly, follow these steps. First, you’ll need to soak the potatoes. This can be done in the morning or just a few minutes before you cook the fries. It will remove any starch, which makes the fries more crispy.
Once you have soaked the potatoes, you’ll need to cut them into 1/4-inch strips. You can use a mandoline to help with this. Next, you’ll want to sprinkle the fries with a little salt. Alternatively, you could also season them with garlic powder and ground pepper.
What are French Fries?
Fries are batonnet or allumette-cut deep-fried potatoes of disputed origin from Belgium and France. They go by many names, including French fries (North American English), chips (British English and other national varieties), finger chips (Indian English), french-fried potatoes, and just fries.
Russet potatoes that have been pre-cut, blanched, and frozen are frequently used. They are made by slicing potatoes into uniform strips, drying them, and deep-frying them. They can also be baked in a standard or convection oven; air fryers are small convection ovens marketed for frying potatoes.
How to Freeze Potatoes for French Fries?
The French fries you make home from fresh potatoes are preferable to those you purchase from a fast food establishment. The whole recipe may be found at the bottom of the post if you scroll down, but the stages for blanching and freezing potatoes are illustrated below.
A large saucepan, two large bowls, a knife, a chopping board, a vegetable peeler, a slotted spoon, sheet trays, parchment paper, kitchen towels, and quart-sized freezer zipper bags are among the kitchen tools need to prepare your fries for freezing.
Step 1: Get the potatoes ready.
Potatoes should be scrubbed under running water and dried with a kitchen towel. It is best to peel potatoes that you will preserve since the peeling can carry botulism bacteria.
Trim off eyeballs, scabs, bruises, and green patches as you peel. Then, rinse the potatoes thoroughly in cool water before patting them dry with a fresh kitchen towel.
Step 2: Cut the potatoes into fry shapes
Cut the potatoes into fry shapes of a uniform thickness using a knife. Put the cut potatoes in a sizable dish of cold water while you work to stop them from going grey and to rinse off extra starch and surface sugars.
Step 3: Prepare the French fries.
Fries should be pre-cooked and dropped into a bowl of ice water to stop the cooking process after being blanched in boiling water. When potatoes are whitened, the enzymes that cause flavor, color, and texture loss are slowed.
Bring a sizable saucepan of water to a boil over high heat before blanching the potatoes. Fill a big dish with ice and cold water while the kettle is heating up.
Put the cut potatoes in the boiling water in batches and boil them for 2 to 5 minutes. The length of time will depend on how big your pieces are. It takes a little longer to cook sweet potatoes than normal potatoes.
To prevent becoming black when frozen, potatoes must be boiled until soft. Test a few pieces by inserting a knife into the potato’s middle. The interior should be as tender as a raw potato, and the blade should pass through without resistance.
Take out the fries and place them in the ice-water dish to cool. Remove the potatoes from the ice water once they have cooled, and then thoroughly pat them dry with a clean kitchen towel.
Step 4: French fries should be frozen.
Flash freezes them on a sheet pan lined with parchment to prevent the fries from sticking to one another. Use a piece of parchment paper between layers when you have a lot of fries to freeze at once, then keep adding layers of fries. Once the potatoes are spread out evenly and frozen, place the baking dish in the freezer for about an hour.
Does Soaking Potatoes Before Frying Make Sense?
To prevent overcooking or scorching the fries and to get the perfect level of crispiness, it is advantageous to soak high-starch potatoes like Russet, Idaho, and Yukon gold potatoes before frying.
As long as it doesn’t affect the starch-moisture balance in your potatoes, soaking is a great way to prevent burnt and unappealing fries.
Some of the sugars and starch are released when you chop potatoes.
If you dip them into heated oil with extra sugar and starch on the surface, the sugar caramelizes and burns before the inside cooks. The scorched sugar will give your fries an undesirable color and flavor.
There is also a danger that the extra starch on the potatoes’ surface will fall off and contaminate the hot oil if they aren’t properly soaked or washed.
The final justification for soaking potatoes is to reduce acrylamide levels.
Because acrylamide levels increase in response to heat or light, potatoes turn green. When deep-frying, look for black fries rather than golden-yellow fries to spot items rich in this toxin.
An excessive amount of acrylamide is harmful to the body. It is best to fully peel a potato before cooking it.
What Types of Potatoes Make the Best French Fries?
Some potatoes yield better French fries than others; not all are made equal. Which potatoes, then, produce the best French fries?
The best french fries are made with russet potatoes because of their high starch and low moisture content. The Burbank type of russets makes the greatest fries.
However, the Maris Piper potato is the greatest in the UK for what they call chips and makes great fries (French Fries).
How to Make French Fries at Home?
Making handmade French fries from scratch only to find that they start to lose their crispness before they are even served is the most painful experience. The traditional method of making homemade fries requires soaking them in water, followed by two rounds of frying.
The endurance and sharpness are amazing. These french fries remain crisp even after cooling off!
Ingredients:
- Salt and potatoes for deep-frying
- Spice Blend Mint Powder
- Pepper flakes
- Masala chaat
- Salt
Instructions:
- Peeling potatoes is necessary for potato fries. Cut each one into quarter-inch-thick pieces by cutting it lengthwise. Then, to create finger-size fries, lay the slices flat on the cutting board and make a second, quarter-inch-long incision into each slice. The potatoes will release any additional starch and become crisp as a result. Fries need to be cooled in water for two to three hours.
- Fries should be boiled in boiling water until almost done. When three liters of water are cooking, add one tablespoon of salt. After being taken out of the water and placed on a kitchen towel, the fries should be completely dried.
- They can be deep-fried in hot oil till golden brown and served with salt or other seasonings.
- They need to be frozen for a day in a plastic bag. Instead, you might chill them after boiling. You can put frozen fries in heated oil when you need to eat fries without first thawing them. Cook until golden brown color.
- Serve immediately after removal, salting, and sprinkling.
How to Identify Potatoes are Gone Bad?
The potatoes are in good shape if they feel substantial to the touch. Check the skin as well; it shouldn’t have any obvious imperfections or discolorations like big bruises, deep black spots, or other apparent flaws.
The following are indicators of poor raw potatoes:
Aging Symptoms Such as Wrinkles
Potato skin ages similarly to human skin in that it sags, wrinkles, and gets dark spots. Such contradictions are a red flag that it is no longer in top shape. The flavor of the potato won’t be impacted, though.
When to throw away: To avoid ruining other potatoes, throw away the potato if it already sags, wrinkles, and feels mushy. A potato should no longer be consumed when it is in this state.
A Foul Odour
The aroma of freshly cut potatoes should be earthy, nutty, and starchy. A potato will smell sour, musty, and moldy as it begins to go bad.
When a potato appears fine on the outside but is already rotten inside, it can be difficult to tell if it is still in good shape.
As a result, it’s crucial to smell the potatoes before buying them. Avoid purchasing it if the scent is off.
Slice the potato open, though, if you’ve already bought it, to see if only a little portion of it is rotten.
Remember that a small imperfection does not require throwing away the entire potato. Simply chop away the ruined area to reveal the still-edible portion.
When to discard: Discard the potato if it has already gone bad on most or all sides.
Sprouts, Green Sprouts, and Shoots
Potatoes do not entirely stop growing after being picked. They, therefore, develop tiny sprouts, or “eyes,” especially when kept in a humid environment for an extended period.
This most frequently occurs with organic potatoes or those grown in the backyard because no pesticides were probably utilized in their development. You can still eat the potato if it still has a fresh scent. The sprouts can be removed before cooking.
Green spots first form, though, before the shoots and sprouts do. Green areas also form when the potato is kept in a location that receives direct sunlight.
What are the Side Effects of Consuming French Fries Made from Spoiled Potatoes?
Potatoes are usually purchased in large numbers and maintained for a long period. Overcooked potatoes can poison the body. Thus one should proceed with prudence. They sag, wrinkle, and become mushy when undercooked for a long time. Additionally, exposure to sunlight may increase the synthesis of solanine throughout the process, making them much more toxic for you.
People frequently question if they should discard sprouted potatoes after using them. Sprouting happens faster when the variety is organic and not chemically treated. Solanine and chaconine, two neurotoxic glycoalkaloids, are in high sprout concentrations.
Both when the potatoes are still solid and when they become mushy or wrinkled might result in potato sprouting. A firm potato can easily have sprouts removed, retaining the majority of the potato’s nutritional value. However, if the potato is wrinkled, it is better to throw it away.
Conclusion
If you plan to use your fries for a large meal, you might consider cooking them in batches. This will allow you to maintain more even heat throughout the dish. Alternatively, you can freeze the potatoes after they are cooked and use them later.
You can also bake your frozen French fries instead of frying them. This method is not only quicker and more efficient, but it is also a healthier alternative to deep-fried French fries. If you want to make homemade french fries, you may want to freeze them later. Unlike regular french fries, frozen fries can be baked for an hour or two, making them more convenient when you need a quick meal.
