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I have eaten french fries from most popular fast food joints. McDonald's has been the best by far.

Crisp & crunchy on the outside yet moist inside, still maintaining the potato taste. Also it does not go soggy after taking it out of the deep-frier. I have tried my best to recreate what they do, I even went to great lengths to get their pre-fried fries from their outlet.

Anyone have any idea how to make this?

Aaronut
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Srikar Appalaraju
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3 Answers3

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What you want is Kenji Lopez-Alt. Here.

Summary:

  • Cut fries 1/4 inch thick to maximize crispiness
  • Blanch fries with a little vinegar in the water
    The vinegar preserves the potatoes' pectin and keeps them from disintegrating in the water
  • Briefly fry
  • Freeze the fries
    This opens up their internal structure and allows more crispification
  • Before serving, fry for the last time

Another advantage of doing fries this way is that the blanching, pre-frying, and freezing can be done in large batches in advance.

Sobachatina
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  • i agree - kenji not only tells you how to do it, he reverse-engineered WHY they are so singularly good, and explains it so it makes perfect sense. – franko Oct 24 '10 at 23:57
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    I do not often say this about anyone. Kenji, however, truly is The Man. –  Oct 25 '10 at 01:54
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    @daniel thanks for sharing. This is exactly what I needed. I read the article & was able to get it done in my kitchen today :) – Srikar Appalaraju Oct 25 '10 at 13:42
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    Care to explain this in a bit more detail? – Ivo Flipse Jan 18 '11 at 19:12
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    Go to the link. It's all very, very well explained there. –  Jan 19 '11 at 13:56
  • A detail often missed: Use much finer-grained salt (grind it down) than you would normally use as table salt. – rackandboneman Aug 09 '16 at 16:44
  • I tried, there are multiple problems with this recipe. The first problem is where you fry, if you don't use a fryer 50 sec and 3 minutes for the first and the second fry are not enough (you need more than 3 minutes for the first and 10-15 minutes for the second). The second problem is that freeze the fries in a freezer make a compact mass, so you will need time to defrost or freeze in really small portions. But the main problem is that it's a really tedious recipe, too much time compared to just fry the potatoes and the taste is not that different. – LiefLayer May 27 '19 at 14:34
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The most detailed French fry investigation I have ever seen comes from the French Culinary Institute's Tech 'N Stuff Blog. You can read The Quest for French Fry Supremacy Part 1 and The Quest for French Fry Supremacy Part 2 for a complete overview not only of their technique but also of the hows and whys behind the decisions they made.

justkt
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    The fries of McDonald are very dissimilar from the real French fries in my honest opinion. – Mien Feb 01 '11 at 17:59
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If you are care about aspects other than texture... You might be interested to know that McDonald's fries are beef flavoured.

In The book fast food nation it is pointed out that McDonald's fries distinctive flavour comes from the fact that they were cooked in 'beef tallow' (lard). In the 90s they stopped doing this and moved over to vegetable oil but started adding artificial flavourings to keep the lard flavour.

Willbill
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