Home › Vegetables › French Fried Potatoes
French Fried Potatoes
Cut into oblong or other shapes, raw potatoes, dry each piece well on a napkin and cook ten or fifteen minutes in boiling hot fat, in a frying-basket. Drain, lay in the oven on paper until all are fried, sift salt over and serve in an uncovered dish.
FRIED POTATOES, No. I-Cut cold boiled potatoes into slices one-fourth of an inch thick, and fry them in a frying-pan in a very little lard, browning both sides of the slices. Add more lard as needed, and season the potatoes with salt and pepper after frying. FRIED POTATOES, No. 2-Cut one pint of uncooked potatoes into blocks measuring about three-fourths of an inch each way, and place them in boiling, salted water. Cook them until almost done, ten or eleven minutes being usually required; then drain off all the water, and allow five minutes for the escape of steam. Have in readiness a sufficient quantity of smoking-hot lard, and drop into it a dozen or so of the potato cubes; let them brown richly, skim them out, and lay them to drain upon brown butcher paper placed on a hot plate. Then put in another dozen cubes. Sift salt and pepper over the potatoes, and serve.
Three related methods for frying potatoes, none of which give a fat temperature. The first is the classic deep-fried chip; the other two are pan and small-batch versions.
- Fat temperatureNo temperature is given anywhere in these three methods. For the deep-fried version, 325-340F for the first stage and 375-385F for a brief finishing fry gives a floury interior and crisp shell. "Smoking-hot lard" in No. 2 implies something in the region of the lard's smoke point; if the fat is actually smoking it is past its useful point.
- Ten to fifteen minutesThat timing probably reflects fat that cools sharply when the basket goes in over a range of the period. In a modern pan with recovered heat, cut potatoes need about 4-6 minutes at the lower temperature and 1-2 minutes at the higher; fifteen minutes straight through at a high temperature will overcook them.
- Drying the piecesThis is the instruction that matters. Surface water drops the fat temperature and makes the potatoes spit and steam rather than crisp. A napkin works; so does a clean towel or a spin in a salad spinner.
- Frying-basketA wire basket that sits in the fat kettle. A spider skimmer or a deep-fry basket does the same job; the point is lifting everything out at once so no piece overcooks.
- LardStill sold and still excellent for this, with a smoke point around 370-400F depending on how it was rendered. Refined peanut, sunflower or high-oleic canola oil substitutes directly. Butter will not work at these temperatures.
- Holding in the oven"Lay in the oven on paper" implies a warm rather than hot oven; a very low setting, around 200F, works. Paper towel replaces brown butcher paper. Do not stack or cover them, hence the instruction to serve in an uncovered dish -- trapped steam softens the crust quickly.
- A pint of potatoesA dry measure of cut cubes, roughly 2 cups, which is somewhere around 10-12 oz of raw potato. Enough for about two.
- Potato varietyThe book does not specify. Use a high-starch type -- russet or a similar baking potato -- for the deep-fried versions. Waxy potatoes hold their shape better for No. 1, where cold boiled slices are browned in a pan.
- Dozen at a timeNot fussiness. Adding a dozen cubes rather than the whole pint keeps the fat from dropping below browning temperature, which is the same reason modern frying is done in batches.
"French fried" in American books of this period means cut into pieces and cooked in deep fat, as distinct from pan-frying; the origin of the phrase is unsettled, though it is often said to point to the French technique of frying rather than to any single French dish. The Butterick Cook Book appeared in 1911, published by the pattern company as part of a broad line of household guides, and its inclusion of three separate fried-potato methods reflects a kitchen where cold boiled potatoes from yesterday's dinner were a routine starting point. The frying-basket and the deep kettle of lard were standard equipment; commercial thermometers for fat were not, which is why the instructions rely on visual cues like smoking fat and a rich brown colour.