How to make crispy fries? The ultimate trick for making crispy fries at home!

There are a few secrets to making perfectly crispy fries at home. The goal is to make sure the center of the fries is fully cooked before the outside gets too brown. The way to achieve this is to cook the fries twice using a particular type of potato and oil. Double-frying potato chips may seem like a big job. However, if you want them to be light and crunchy, that’s what you need to do. If not, they’ll be crunchy, but undercooked in the center, or just greasy and soft. How to make crispy fries? Finally here is THE recipe for the perfect fries! Based on a revolutionary method from the legendary, these french fries are so crispy they stay crunchy even after they’ve cooled. It’s rare to find fries this good even in high end bistros!

No false promises, these chips stay really crunchy!

There’s nothing more deflated than going out of your way to make your fries from scratch, only to find they start to lose their crunch before they even reach the table. This is what happens if you use the standard method of cooking homemade chips: soaking in water followed by double frying. But how to make crispy fries? Well, it took me years, but with the help of Kenji López-Alt’s impressive and in-depth research into french fries documented in The Food Lab, Chef JB has finally found the recipe for the perfect homemade french fries. Soft on the inside, crunchy on the outside, and they stay crunchy long after it takes to eat fries and, say, a big, juicy cheeseburger. The perfect fries! The crunchy resistance is crazy. These fries stay crunchy even after they’ve cooled!

To go ahead or cook large batches, prepare the fries ahead of time, let them cool, and then freeze them until ready to cook. Then fry from frozen. Comfortable! First we need to cut our fries. A little tip for cooking seasonal vegetables and making ultra delicious crispy fries: use a serrated knife to cut the potatoes. While not visible to the naked eye, it does roughen the surface, creating more surface area for crunching, which in turn makes the fries crispier! How to slice fries? Cut a whole potato into 6 mm thick slices. Stack 2 or 3 slices and cut them into 6 mm thick sticks. Keep the cut fries in water to prevent them from blackening as you continue to cut. No soaking time. A simple rinse followed by simmering the potatoes in vinegar water takes care of that for us.

Cooking in vinegar water is the ultimate crunch!

Once the potatoes have been rinsed, put them in a saucepan with cold tap water, vinegar and salt. Bring to a boil over high heat, then immediately reduce the heat to low so the surface just ripples. Cook for 10 minutes. See below the “why” of this step! What is cooking in vinegar water used for?

• It’s the really clever part, an effortless pass discovered by Serious Eats’ Kenji Lopez-Alt that makes all the difference. There’s a lot of technical science behind why, but in a nutshell:
• Simmering chips in water removes excess sugar which can cause chips to brown too much before they have a chance to crisp properly when frying.
• Water also activates the starches in the potato. The starch, when fried, is what creates that crunchy surface we crave!
• During this time, adding acid (the vinegar) to the water prevents the potatoes from disintegrating during the required 10 minutes of simmering. The method of simmering water with vinegar for 10 minutes works. Don’t skip it or shorten it!

To fry !

For safety’s sake, take a 10 second break between adding more batches of potatoes to the oil! The oil boils quite high and vigorously as soon as the potatoes are added. If you add all the potatoes at once, the oil will rise even higher and faster, which is risky. I speak from first-hand experience here! Cook the fries in 3 batches. Separate cooked potatoes into 3 equal piles. Fry the first one in three times in a 24 cm pot. If your skillet is larger or smaller, adjust the number of servings accordingly so all the chips in a batch can float in a single layer in the oil.

• Add 1/3 of batch number 1 using a spider or slotted spoon. Carefully add 1/3 of the first batch into the oil.
• Wait 10 seconds, then add another 1/3 of the batch. It’s important to pause before adding more fries to make sure the oil doesn’t bubble up too much. Use this time to load in more fries.
• Repeat. Then wait 10 seconds, then add the last third of batch 1.
• Fry 50 seconds. Once all the fries are in, start the timer and fry for 50 seconds, moving the fries once or twice.

Now that your fries are done, sprinkle them with salt or your favorite fries seasoning while they’re hot to help the salt adhere. Stir, then serve! Remember, these fries make great homemade savory brunch ideas and will stay crispy for over 15 minutes. Of course, it’s best to eat them hot!