Getting restaurant-quality French fries at home is no easy feat because it’s difficult to attain that perfect crispy exterior when you’re not working with professional deep fryers. But according to Martha Stewart, you don’t have to have restaurant equipment to achieve that perfect golden brown and crispy texture. You just need to soak your potatoes and cook them twice to get that crunch you’ve been craving.
“For the crispiest home-cooked fries, Martha uses russet potatoes and a mandoline fitted with a French fry blade to cut them evenly,” the caption of a recent post on Stewart’s official Instagram page reads.
“She then soaks the cut potatoes in cold water to remove the starch before cooking the potatoes twice: Blanching them first in oil, then draining and cooling them before cooking them through. The result is restaurant-quality fries that are golden brown and crisp outside with a tender and creamy interior.”
If you prefer cutting your fries by hand, then that’s fine, too. This cooking method will work no matter how thick-cut you like them. The important steps are the soaking and the blanching.
“Put [your cut potatoes] immediately into ice water,” Stewart says in the above video. “Soaking the potatoes really, really well will remove the starch, and refrigerating them will actually make the final product crispier.”
To blanch and fry, Stewart loves using her enameled cast iron Dutch ovens because they heat evenly and are large enough to let the fries have their space. And she prefers using soybean oil, but any neutral oil will work just fine. Just make sure that you dry your fries off very well before placing them into the hot oil, or else you may have a dangerous mess on your hands.
And, of course, when your fries come out of their second frying session, douse them with a bit of course salt after they drain to really sell that restaurant-quality flavor.
Grab Stewart’s full recipe for her crispy French fries here and your burger nights will never be the same (in the best way possible!).
Before you go, check out our slideshow below:
Leave a Comment