447 lines
21 KiB
Markdown
447 lines
21 KiB
Markdown
---
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created_at: '2013-12-28T05:06:29.000Z'
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title: How to Make Perfect Thin and Crisp French Fries (2010)
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url: http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/05/the-burger-lab-how-to-make-perfect-mcdonalds-style-french-fries.html?daysago=1300
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author: shawndumas
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points: 186
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story_text: ''
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comment_text:
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num_comments: 74
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story_id:
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story_title:
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story_url:
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parent_id:
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created_at_i: 1388207189
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_tags:
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- story
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- author_shawndumas
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- story_6974025
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objectID: '6974025'
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year: 2010
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---
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###
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**
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Get the Recipe
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- [Perfect Thin and Crispy French
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Fries](https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/05/perfect-french-fries-recipe.html)
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N.B. I apologize in advance for the length of this post. French fries
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are a pretty epic subject for me...
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I'm gonna come right out and say something that I'm sure you won't all
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openly agree with: **McDonald's french fries are great.** At their best,
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they are everything a french fry should be: salty, crisp, light, and not
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greasy. Granted, you get the occasional odd franchise that lets'em sit
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under the heat lamp for a couple hours too long, but on the whole, I
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find it remarkable that the bigwigs have discovered a way to create a
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frozen fry that even a one armed eyeless chimp has trouble screwing up.
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And I know, because they've got one working the fry station at the
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franchise on my corner.
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To be absolutely honest, I've never been able to make fries as good as
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theirs (shhhhh\!). Sure, my thick-cut pub-style fries are super-potatoey
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and fantastic, and when I'm in the mood for them, my seasoned steak
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fries can't be beat, but for thin, super-crisp fries (I'm talking the
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kind that only appear in fast food restaurants and French bistros under
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the name frites)? I'm always better off running down to the take-out
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window than bothering to fry them myself at home.
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**Until now.**
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I've been literally giddy with the quality of the fries that have been
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coming out of my kitchen for the last two days. My wife won't hear the
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end of it. Even my puppy is wondering why his owner keeps exclaiming
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"Holy s\*\*t that's good\!" every half hour from the kitchen. I've
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cooked over 43 batches of fries in the last three days, and I'm happy to
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report that I've finally found a way to consistently reach crisp, golden
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Nirvana.
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#### The Anatomy of a Perfect Fry
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There are a few factors that go into making a perfect fry:
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**Perfect Fry Factor \#1: The exterior must be very crisp, but not
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tough.**
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In order to achieve this crispness, the surface structure of a fry must
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be riddled with micro-bubbles. It's these tiny crisp bubbles that
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increase the surface area of the fry, making it extra crunchy. Ideally,
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this layer should only be as thick as it needs to be to add crispness.
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Any thicker, and you start running into leathery territory.
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**Perfect Fry Factor \#2: The interior must be intact, fluffy, and have
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a strong potato
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flavor.**
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Fries with a pasty, mealy, or gummy interior or even worse, the dreaded
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state known as "hollow-fry" (when the interior is missing entirely) are
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an automatic fail in my fry book.
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**Perfect Fry Factor \#3: The fry must be an even, light golden
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blond**
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Fries that are too dark or are spotty have an offputting burnt flavor
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that distracts from the potato. Light golden but perfectly crisp is how
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I want my fries to be.
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**Perfect Fry Factor \#4: The fry must stay crisp and tasty for at least
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as long as it takes to eat a full
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serving.**
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Fries that comes straight out of the fryer are almost always perfectly
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crisp. The true test of a great fry is **whether or not it remains crisp
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and edible a few minutes later after its been sitting on your plate.**
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The bendy fry pictured above fails that test.
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So how does one going about achieving these goals? The traditional
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[double fry
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method](https://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010/01/the-burger-lab-why-double-fry-french-fries.html)
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(once at low temp, then again at high temp) works, but it's far from
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foolproof, and fails to meet all of the requirements I've set for a
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perfect fry. For one thing, the fries inevitably come out too brown—some
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times massively so. For another, they lose their crunch within a few
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minutes after coming out of the fryer. Clearly the method needs an
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overhaul. I suppose I could do what the McDonald's Corporation did and
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spend millions of dollars researching exactly how to accomplish fry
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perfection time after time anywhere around the world, but unfortunately
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Serious Eats doesn't pay me well enough to do that. I'm also
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understaffed, to say the least. So I decided to go with the next best
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alternative: **steal their recipe**.
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That's much easier said than done.
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#### Hamburgling
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Anyone with a buck can get a batch of fully cooked McDonald's fries, but
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I was after something more. I wanted to get fries from the store **in
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their fully frozen state** so that I could examine their surface for
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clues on how they were parcooked, as well as attempt to fry them myself
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at home to discover if there is any secret in the fry oil in the shops.
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I figured I'd be just be able to walk into the store and order them
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straight from the cashier.
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"Welcome to McDonald's, may I take your order?"
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"Yes Ma'am. I'd like a large fries please, hold the cooking."
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"Excuse me?"
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I know she's already said no in her head, but I press on just the same:
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"Um... I'd just like the frozen fries please."
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"I'm sorry sir, we just don't do that."
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Time for some intimidation tactics: "Ok. Could I speak to the manager
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please?"
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"I am the manager."
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Sh\*t. I bring out the really big guns: "Listen, the thing is, my wife
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is pregnant—like really pregnant—and she sent me on a quest for
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McDonald's french fries. But she only likes them really fresh, like
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straight out of the fryer fresh, so I figured I'd just get some frozen,
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and fry them for her at home. You know how it is. Women—no accounting
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for'em, right?"
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She remains unimpressed, and needless to say, I go home fry-less,
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contemplating whether attempting to leverage an unborn, un-conceived son
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in exchange for a couple dozen frozen potato sticks is grounds for
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eternal damnation. Thank God I'm an atheist.
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In a last ditch effort, I appeal to my [Facebook
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fans](http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Food-Lab/256324452909) for some
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assistance, promising cold hard cash and full credit in this story to
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anyone who could get me a stash of frozen McDonald's fries. Within 24
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hours, I had received this email from a Grant Held:
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> Kenji, you put forth an excellent challenge; I enjoy both challenges
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> and your food writing immensely, so I came up with an excellent plan
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> that worked the first try.
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>
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> Getting your frozen fries was simply a matter of finding the right
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> fraternity man; One who had the ability to make up extemporaneous
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> bullsh\*t and the all important "charm factor." Some would say
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> possessing these attributes can help you get laid in college, but I
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> plead The Fifth....
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>
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> The plan involved me printing out a fake list of items needed for a
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> Scavenger Hunt sponsored by "The Simplot Foundation." A "Mr. Simplot"
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> had endowed an annual prize for the winning team of the scavenger
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> hunt, which would be used to fund the "research projects of the
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> members of the winning team each year." (Members also had to belong to
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> the Harold McGee Society and Order of Brillat-Savarin).
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>
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> I walked into the McD's on xxxxxxx. (The exact location has been
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> removed because we don't want to get the manager fired)
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>
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> I had pre-printed a list of items for said made up "Scavenger Hunt" (I
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> basically Googled "Scavenger Hunt Lists" and added "Frozen McDonald's
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> french fries".)
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>
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> I walked in, asked for the manager and explained the scavenger hunt. I
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> said I needed 25 fries, which I was willing to pay for, but they had
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> to be frozen. Her English was not ideal, so I spoke Spanish, and a
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> young associate took kindly upon me and explained what I needed. The
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> manager agreed, but thought I was asking for 25 FREE packages of
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> cooked fries\!\!\! And she was willing to give them to me\!\!\! (She
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> said my accent was great but my grammar was terrible... oh well...)
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>
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> I said I needed FROZEN fries, which really perplexed her, but my young
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> McD's associate friend explained the concept of a scavenger hunt and
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> soon enough I was invited into the kitchen and she grabbed a handful
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> of fries and placed them in the zip lock bag I brought with me.
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Grant, you are a genius amongst men, and I am forever in your debt.
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The handoff was made the next day, and I finally had a batch of frozen
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McDonald's fries on which to
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operate.
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#### Deconstructing the Arches
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The first thing I noticed was the surface texture of the fries. They
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seemed smooth, but on closer inspection, I noticed that **they were
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dotted with tiny tiny bubbles,** indicating that they had definitely
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been fried at least once prior to arriving at the store. I measured them
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with calipers and found that they were precisely 1/4 of an inch thick. A
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good size for optimizing crust to interior
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ratio.
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McDonald's used to fry their potatoes in beef tallow, giving them extra
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flavor and making them extra crisp, but they stopped doing that years
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ago. But perhaps there's still something magic about their oil? To test
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this, I fried up a batch of the frozen fries in 375°F peanut oil,
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letting them cook for about 3 minutes before draining, seasoning, and
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tasting.
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They were just as perfect as the fries at the store. That answers the
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first question: **there is no magic in the oil**. Something must be done
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to those potatoes during the pre-processing that makes them unique.
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For the next phase, I started doing some research and caught a lucky
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break by finding [this
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article](http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1386768/how_mcdonalds_fries_are_made.html?cat=22)
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online, which essentially runs through the whole process of what goes on
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in a McDonald's potato processing plant as told by LeAron Plackett, a
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thirteen-year-long employee. The parts that interested me most were on
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the second page:
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> The fries are then flumed out of the A.D.R. room to the "blancher."
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> The blancher is a large vessel filled with one hundred and seventy
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> degree water. The trip through the blancher takes about fifteen
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> minutes... After the fries leave the blancher, they are dried and then
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> it's off to the "fryer," which is filled with one hundred percent
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> vegetable oil. The oil is heated to three hundred and sixty five
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> degrees and the fries take a fifty second dip before being conveyed to
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> the "de-oiler shaker," where excess oil is "shook off."
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Bingo.
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So McDonald's does indeed use a double fry method, but it's far from the
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traditional one. Rather than a slow low temperature fry for the first
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round, the fries get dunked into very hot oil for only 50 seconds (the
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second fry is then carried out at the actual location). In addition to
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this, **the potatoes get a pre-fry blanching step in hot water.** What
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could the purpose of this be?
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To answer that question, it's important to understand exactly what
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happens when a french fry is cooked.
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#### The Balance of Pectin, Starch, and Simple Sugars
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Like all plants and animals, potatoes are composed of cells. These cells
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are held together by pectin, a form of sugar that acts as a type of
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glue. These cells also contain starch granules—tiny sacs that resemble
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water balloons, as well as simple sugars. When these starch granules are
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exposed to water and heat, they begin to swell, eventually bursting, and
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releasing a shower of swollen starch molecules. Now the problem is, in
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order to get the ideal crust, all three of these elements must be in the
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proper balance, and the proper state. Too many simple sugars, and your
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potato will brown long before it crisps. If pectin has broken down too
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much before the starch granules have had a chance to burst and release
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their sticky innards, your potatoes will either fail to form a crust,
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will fall apart before it gets a chance to, or in the worst case will
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cook up completely hollow, like
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this:
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That's not a good thing.
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Pre-cooking the fries in a water bath the way McDonald's does
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accomplishes two goals. First, it rinses off excess simple sugars,
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helping the fries attain a light gold color, instead of a deep dark
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brown. Secondly, it activates an enzyme called pectin methylesterase
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(PME). According to [an article in the Journal of Agricultural and Food
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Chemistry](http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jf60184a031), PME induces
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calcium and magnesium to act as a sort of buttress for pectin. They
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strengthen the pectin's hold on the potato cell's walls, which helps the
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potatoes stay firmer and more intact when cooked to a higher
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temperature. That's why the surface of a McDonald's fry looks the way it
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does: rather than blistering into large bubbles like a traditional
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double-fried french fry does, **the reinforced walls form the super-tiny
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bubbles that give them their extra crunch.**
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Now, like most enzymes, PME is only active within a certain temperature
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range, acting faster and faster as the temperature gets higher until,
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like a switch, it shuts off completely once it reaches a certain level.
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170°F is just under that cutoff point.
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My objective just became much clearer: in order to get my fries ultra
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crisp, I'd need to find a way to strengthen their pectin before allowing
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their starch granules to burst.
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#### Bringing Home the Gold
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The most obvious way to do this is just to copy McDonald's exactly: cook
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the potatoes in a precisely maintained 170°F water bath for 15 minutes.
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I tried it using my [Sous-Vide
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Supreme](http://www.sous-vide-supreme.com), followed by a fry at 360°F
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for 50 seconds, and a second fry at 375°F for 3 1/2 minutes. It worked
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like a charm. The fries tasted nearly identical to those that come from
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McDonald's. Of course, now two new questions entered my head: What about
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for those poor souls who don't have a temperature-controlled water bath?
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And more importantly, now that I've got the fries down, could I make
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them even better? I mean, they taste fantastic now, but we all know that
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McDonald's fries get soggy pretty darn fast. If these fries were really
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going to be perfect, I'd have to address that issue.
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To solve the first problem, my initial though was to start the potatoes
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in cold water, and slowly bring it up to a simmer. My hope was that by
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doing this, they'd spend enough time under the 170°F cutoff point to
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improve their structure adequately. No dice. The potatoes were certainly
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better than ones dunked straight into the fryer, but they didn't come
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close to the originals. Next I tried adding a measured amount of boiling
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water to a pot containing the cut potatoes. I calculated exactly how
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much water I'd need in order for it to equilibrate to 170°F. It worked a
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little better, but the water temperature dropped off too quickly for it
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to be effective. Was I gonna have to break out the [beer
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cooler](https://www.seriouseats.com/2010/04/cook-your-meat-in-a-beer-cooler-the-worlds-best-sous-vide-hack.html)
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for this one? There had to be another way.
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That's when I thought—perhaps there is another way to strengthen pectin
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without having to rely on some fickle enzyme (I've never liked enzymes
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anyway), and it struck me: **apple pie**.
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What's this got to do with french fries? Well everyone who's ever baked
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an apple pie knows that different apples cook differently. Some retain
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their shape, while others turn to mush. The difference largely has to do
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with their acidity. Thus super tart apples like Granny Smith will stay
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fully intact, while sweeter apples like a Macoun will almost completely
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dissolve. Just like a potato, apple cells are held together by pectin.
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Moral of the story: **acid slows the breakdown of pectin**.
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What if rather than trying to fiddle with temperature, I just relied on
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the use of acid to help the potatoes keep their structure?
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I tried bringing two pots of cut potatoes to a boil side by side, the
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first with plain water, and the second with **water spiked with vinegar
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at a ratio of one tablespoon per quart.** Here's what I
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saw:
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The fries boiled in plain water disintegrated, making them nearly
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impossible to pick up. When I added them to the hot oil, they broke
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apart even further. On the other hand, **those boiled in the vinegared
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water remained perfectly intact,** even after boiling for a full ten
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minutes. When fried, they had fabulously crisp crusts with tiny, bubbly,
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blistered surfaces that stayed crisp even when they were completely
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cool. As for the flavor, if I tasted really hard, I could pick up a
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faint vinegary undertone, though I wouldn't have if I didn't know it was
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there. Even knowing it was there, it wasn't unpleasant at all. After
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all, I'm used to putting my fries in ketchup or mayo, both of which
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contain plenty of acid.
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This is a picture of one of the fries which I bent a full ten minutes
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after it had come out of the oil. See how crisp is
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stays?
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#### Getting Inside the Fluffy Interior
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Now that I'd perfected the crust, the final issue to deal with was that
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of the interior. One last question remained: how to maximize the flavor
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of the interior. **In order to stay fluffy and not gummy, a lot of the
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interior moisture needs to be expelled in the cooking process,** so my
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goal should be to make this evaporation as easy as possible. I figure
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that so far, by cooking it all the way to boiling point, I'm doing
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pretty much the right thing—the more cooked the potatoes are, the more
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the cell structure breaks down, and the easier it is for water to be
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expelled. To confirm this, I cooked three batches of potatoes, starting
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each in a pot of cold, vinegared water, and bringing them up to various
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final temperature (170°F, 185°F, and 212°F) before draining and
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double-frying them. Not surprisingly, the boiled potatoes had the best
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internal structure. Luckily, they were the easiest to make as well.
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But was there anything more I could do? I thought back to those
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McDonald's fries and realized a vital step that I had neglected to test:
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**freezing**. Every batch of McDonald's fries is frozen before being
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shipped out to the stores. I always figured this step was for purely
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economic reasons, but perhaps there was more to it?
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I tried freezing half a batch of fries before frying them and tasted
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them side-by-side against the other
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half.
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The improvement was undeniable. **The frozen fries had a distinctly
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fluffier interior, while the unfrozen ones were still ever-so-slightly
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gummy.** It makes perfect sense. Freezing the potatoes causes their
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moisture to convert to ice, forming sharp, jagged crystals. These
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crystals damage the cell structure of the potato, making it easier for
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them to be released once they are heated and convert to steam. The best
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part? Because freezing actually improves them, I can do the initial
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blanching and frying steps in large batches, freeze them, and have a
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constant supply of ready-to-fry potatoes right in my freezer just like
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Ronald himself\!
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I know it's bad form to toot your own horn, but I'm simply amazed that
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these fries have been coming out of my own kitchen. I've been eating
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fries in various shades of good or bad constantly for the past few days,
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and I'm absolutely sick of them, yet I am still eating them even as I
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sit here and type. I really hope my wife doesn't mind greasy keyboards.
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You never know what's gonna set her off.
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For instance—she gets mad when I say things like that about her on
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completely public forums. Go
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figure.
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###
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**
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Get the
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Recipe
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- [](https://www.seriouseats.com/recipes/2010/05/perfect-french-fries-recipe.html)
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#### Perfect Thin and Crispy French Fries
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View Recipe »
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