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French Fried Potatoes
Pare the potatoes and throw them into cold water until needed. Dry them with a towel; cut into small pieces lengthwise of the potato; drop them into hot fat and remove when lightly browned. It is better to fry only a few at a time, letting those done stand in a colander in the oven to keep hot. When all are done, sprinkle with salt and serve at once.
For variety, and for use in garnishing, cut the potatoes into balls, using the vegetable cutter which comes for this purpose.
A single-fry method from an era when "hot fat" meant a kettle of lard on a coal range. The instructions are sound as far as they go, but a few specifics are left to the cook.
- Fat temperatureThe original gives no number. Use 350-375F for a single fry; below about 325F the potatoes absorb fat and go limp, above 400F they colour before the interior cooks.
- Why small batches matterThis is the hinge of the recipe. A large handful of cold, wet potatoes drops the fat temperature sharply, and the result steams rather than fries. Fry in batches that cover no more than half the surface of the fat.
- Dry them properlyThe cold-water soak removes surface starch and prevents browning in the bowl, but water in hot fat spits violently. Towel-drying is not optional.
- Keeping them hotThe recipe says only to stand the drained pieces in a colander 'in the oven', with no temperature given. The intent is a warm oven rather than a hot one; in a closed hot oven the fried pieces sweat and soften.
- The fat itselfThe period fat would most likely have been lard or beef drippings. Any neutral oil with a high smoke point works; peanut, refined sunflower, or a shortening will all behave similarly, and lard gives the closest flavour to the original.
- For a crisper resultModern practice is a double fry: once at about 325F until soft and pale, then again at 375F to colour. The single fry here gives a drier, more brittle result than a modern twice-fried chip.
- The vegetable cutterThe tool for potato balls is a melon baller or Parisienne scoop. Balls cut from raw potato need longer in the fat than thin strips and should be fried on their own.
- YieldReckon one medium potato per person as a side dish, two if they are the main starch.
French fried potatoes reached American cookbooks in the nineteenth century as a restaurant dish, and older books often call them "French fried" to distinguish them from potatoes simply fried in a pan with a little fat, which was the older domestic method. The name is often said to refer to the cutting rather than to France, since to "french" a vegetable is to cut it into long strips, though a competing and at least equally well supported reading takes it to mean frying in the French manner, that is, in deep fat. Deep frying at home stayed something of an occasion until stoves gave reliable control of heat, which is why this recipe is so insistent about frying a few at a time and holding the finished batches warm. The reference to a "vegetable cutter which comes for this purpose" is a small window on the period's enthusiasm for specialised gadgets, and on garnishing as a household skill: potato balls, hollowed and shaped vegetables, and fluted cuts were expected around a joint of meat on a good table.