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French Fried Potatoes
Pare and cut the potatoes in any way desired. Drain and dry in a cloth. Have lard boiling hot and fry them to a very light brown; salt as you take out, and drain well of all grease.
Four sentences that assume you already know how to fry. What they leave out is temperature, which is the whole recipe.
- Dry the potatoes properlyThe cloth is not a formality. Surface water drops the fat temperature and spits violently; pat the cut potatoes until they feel dry to the hand.
- "Boiling hot" lardLard does not boil, it shimmers and thins. The intended range is roughly 350-375F. Below 325F the potatoes soak; above 400F lard begins to smoke and break down.
- Fry twiceA single fry to "very light brown" gives a limp chip. Modern practice is often to blanch at about 325F until soft but pale, rest, then finish at 375F for colour. The original's light brown is a reasonable stopping point for the first stage.
- Fat choiceLard works well and was the default; refined lard has a high smoke point and gives a clean flavour. Peanut, sunflower or beef tallow behave the same way. Use at least 2 inches of fat and fry in small batches.
- Salt while hotThe instruction to salt as you lift them out is the correct one. Salt sticks to the film of hot fat and will slide straight off a cooled chip.
- DrainingA rack over a tray beats paper, which traps steam under the potatoes and softens the crust.
- Potato varietyA floury or all-purpose potato, Russet or Maris Piper, fries far better than a waxy new potato, which stays dense and glassy.
- YieldNo quantity is given at all. Reckon one large potato, about 8 oz, per person as a side dish.
French fried potatoes reached American cookbooks in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the terse handling here suggests the dish was familiar enough by the time this book was written to need no introduction. The name is often explained as "frenched" in the butcher's sense, meaning cut into strips, rather than as a claim of French origin, though deep-fried potatoes are reported to have been sold by Parisian street vendors before they appeared in English-language books. What dates this version is the lard: household frying fat generally meant rendered pork or beef, bottled cooking oils being comparatively expensive. The absence of any temperature is also of its period, written for a cook judging a kettle of fat by eye, sound and a test chip rather than a thermometer.