Over in another topic, drholly brought up a memory of some really good French fries so rather than highjack that thread I'm going to start a new one here.
The fries in question were thin, crispy on the outside, and soft in the middle. Didn't sound at all like the stuff in the red bags in the freezer section at the grocery store. They sounded like some made at a favorite beanery of my youth, Herman's Café. We kids would flock in the place and eat huge plates of the fries with lots of Heinz ketchup and wash them down with gallons of sugary sodas -- mainly Cokes and Dr. Peppers.
I once asked the proprietor (Herman, believe it or not) how he made such great fries. He said it was easy but time-consuming. He had a special cutter that made the strips of potato uniform, larger than a shoestring but still not terribly thick. He also said he used a little beef fat in the vegetable oil used in the deep fryer -- never said how much. He never used frozen fries and cut his own fresh every day, even though the frozen ones cooked a lot faster (they're pre-fried partially before being packaged). Finally, he said the really big thing was using russet potatoes. Other "breeds" wouldn't get the exterior crispness and the interior softness. Russets are very common and most commonly used for baked potatoes.
Anyone else got any French Fry how-to's to share? I don't make them very often but I love a good one. The Five Guys hamburger chain comes close to Herman's but theirs are thicker.
Hub
