Have you ever had the experience of making something a certain way all your life, then finding out one day you had been doing it all wrong? This is what happened to me last weekend when I decided to make Homemade French Fries to go with our Father’s Day dinner. My husband was given an electric meat smoker by the kids awhile back, so he decided to try cooking ribs for its trial run. Well, the ribs were excellent, but that’s not the story. It was the fries! Oh my goodness, they were so good we couldn’t stop eating them. French Fries, the commonest food in the world--it was like the scales of darkness fell from our eyes to witness a whole new wonderful world of crispy, potato deliciousness! Too bad deep fried food can only occur in my life about twice a year (Christmas Eve Egg Rolls and Halloween Spudnuts).
The fries were fabulous because of the procedure demonstrated by my friend, “Pioneer Woman.” Pioneer Woman, aka Ree Drummond (I may have mentioned her once or twice) did not invent this procedure, which involves soaking the potatoes to remove the starch, frying at a low temperature, then refrying later at a high temperature. In fact, my husband, who served his mission in Belgium has told me for years that this is how he saw the street venders there make their fries, served with a variety of dipping sauces. I didn’t really believe him—it just seemed so weird that you would cook them twice. But lately I’ve been seeing people doing this on cooking shows, and when I did an internet search, there was Pioneer Woman, waiting with instructions, which I followed to the letter. Now I’m going to share them with you, (with a few modifications) so we can all be happy. Not to mention our kids, husbands, sons-in-law, neighbors, parents, and anyone else deemed worthy. Two rules—you have to have the rest of the dinner ready before frying so you can gobble them immediately, and you have to mix up what we Utahns like to call “Fry Sauce” (much to the amusement of the rest of the country). This will complete the whole decadent fry-eating experience.
Begin by peeling five pounds of potatoes, then cut them into sticks. If you have a French fry cutter, great, but if not, try to make them as uniform as possible. Place them in a large bowl and cover them with cold water, then let them soak for at least two or three hours—up to 24 hours.
The soaking process removes the starch on the outside of the potato, which will help the fries achieve the perfect crispness.
Working in small batches, add the potatoes to the 300 degree oil. You don’t want the oil to cool down too much by adding too many.
Then fry the potatoes for 5 minutes. The key here isn’t to brown them at all…just to start softening them up.
Drain them on (new, dry) paper towels.
Keep doing this until you’ve fried all the potatoes at 300 degrees.
Then…crank up the heat and bring to oil to 400 degrees. This will probably be at your stove’s highest temperature (but be sure to watch the thermometer).
Then batch by batch…
. . . throw them back into the oil and fry until they’re nice and golden and crisp. Drain on a plate with a napkin or paper towel…
Then sprinkle them with sea salt. Serve at once.
Utah Fry Sauce
If there's anyone out there who doesn't know this, Fry Sauce is made with Mayonnaise, Ketchup, and seasoning salt, in whatever proportions you like. I like mine heavy on the ketchup for a healthier version (is it even OK to refer to such a concoction in the same sentence with the word "healthy?") I like to use DeVerle's Seasoning Salt (that you can buy at Juniper Take Out), but any seasoning salt, or none at all, will do. You basically just mix it up to your own taste.
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