HOW TO MAKE THE PERFECT FRENCH FRIES (POMMES FRITTES)
Potato chips are very popular, especially among the kids, and they are also very easy to do, however a few words of caution must be given. One, the oil in which the potatoes are fried is extremely hot so you need to watch what you are doing and keep the oil pan on a stove that maybe is further away from your body but you should still manage to easily put in and remove the potatoes from the pan. Secondly, potato chips are tasty but they also are not very healthy, and therefore should not be consumed very frequently.
The good thing about fried potatoes is that they can be seasoned with different spices, to suit the dish they are supposed to accompany. One of my personal favorite combinations is salt and dried marjoram - this blend just lifts up the potato taste to a new level. You can also experiment with other seasonings, like cayenne or cumin. For more oriental flavor try coriander. All these seasonings are added after the potatoes are fried, but you can also extract flavor from some fresh herbs during the frying procedure. A sprig of rosemary, and perhaps some garlic in the pan can give an interesting flavor to the fries. The choice of oil for frying the potatoes will naturally also have its effect on the final flavor. Since high quality olive oil is expensive it is not used for frying (where large volume of it is needed), and it may give too dominant own flavor to the potatoes. Usually a neutral, cheap oil is good, like corn oil. Some people like to use peanut oil as well. Also remember not to re-use the oils for too many times because they get bad for your health when heated many times to high temperatures. With all this mentioned, let's get to the procedure of making french fries!
At the simplest level of sophistication you only need three ingredients for french fries: potatoes, oil, and salt. But of course you can make things more interesting by adding some extra spices or herbs, as discussed above.
The first thing to do is to peel the potatoes and cut them into the shapes of fries. You can choose different thickness to them, depending on how you want your french fries to taste - thinner fries will be quite crispy throughout, while the bigger fries will have more of the creamy interior and a fine layer of crispy skin. Once you've cut the potatoes into fries, keep them in cold water to prevent discoloration (if you don't cook them right away, that is), and start heating up the oil in a deep pan. How much oil is needed? It should be so much so you can completely immerse the potatoes, so it depends on how many fries you do. The fries are cooked in two steps: first the cooking stage at lower temperature, and then finishing off the crispiness at high temperature. So, first you need to heat the oil to about 150 C/300 F. Prepare the potatoes by drying them from water on paper towels (drying must be complete or the water will sputter from the hot oil!). Then put them into the oil and cook until they are a little undercooked, then raise the temperature to as much as possible, like 190 C/375 F, and cook until they get a golden brown color on their skin. Then lift them up from the oil with a spider and transfer to a pan covered with paper towels, so the fat is drained off the potatoes. Season the potatoes as you wish, mix, and then they are ready to be served.
In some cases you will get both a nice crispy skin and a creamy interior using just one temperature setting, and if this works in your kitchen then you're in good luck. Whatever the way you need to take to make the perfect french fries, use it. Some experimentation might be needed to know the relation between the thickness of the fries and optimal time and temperature of oil, to get fine french fries.