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How to Make Perfect Thin and Crisp French Fries (2010)

193 points by shawndumas 13y ago

zaroth 13y ago
Gotta love a) this guy's passion for fries, b) that McDonalds gave away their secret recipe (blanching) without which Kenji seemed to be totally stuck, and c) the vinegar trick to make it easier for us to do back at home. He doesn't mention what's he using to cut the fries?
- sjtrny 13y ago
  It's hardly a secret. In fact one of the worlds most renowned chefs, Heston Blumenthal, openly describes the practice.
  - bostik 13y ago
    I'm actually in the middle of The Fat Duck Cookbook. Blumenthal's recipe for top-notch pub chips (large and slightly bulky, not thin like fries) even goes by the name "triple-cooked chips". In the TV series, In Search of Perfection, he goes the extra mile to figure out a way to reproduce the recipe in reasonably well equipped home kitchens. One of the many tricks is that having salt in the blanching water is mandatory. It helps to create the porous surface. His recipe is so good I can make delicious chips at home even without access to a temperature controlled fat fryer. (Incidentally, Jamie Oliver blanches whole skinned potatoes before roasting them in the oven. I've tried that too and it does make a big difference to how they come up.) But the vinegar trick was something I hadn't heard before. I'll have to give it a try, because it would seem to give some extra leeway with timing. For a home cook, that is an important factor.
    - gjm11 13y ago
      Pretty much everyone parboils potatoes before roasting them in the oven. (About 10 minutes in lightly salted water. After boiling them and draining the cooking water, put the lid back on the pan briefly and give it a good shake to roughen the surface of the potatoes. You'll get better crunchy outsides that way.) Is that what Jamie Oliver recommends, or is it some further less standard trick?
      - bostik 13y ago
        > Is that what Jamie Oliver recommends, or is it some further less standard trick? Just one deviation: steam-dry step instead of putting the lid back on. The potatoes are poured out to a colander and left there for a few minutes.
        sanityinc 13y ago
        Yes, and tossing them around gently in the colander is the ideal way to roughen the surface. This is also Raymond Blanc's method. If the water can be kept vigorously boiling, it's usually only necessary to parboil the potatoes for a few minutes: just enough to soften the outer 5mm or so.
    - radicality 13y ago
      By "in the middle", do you mean you are actually recreating the dishes as you go along? I have the book also, and it has some nice stories, but the recipes require not only a lot of skill and time, but also equipment. Also, eating at the Fat Duck was my best restaurant experience ever!
      - bostik 13y ago
        Good grief, no. The book is unapologetic in the extreme, and the recipes are practically impossible to recreate without a wide array of kitchen equipment. They really are the recipes used at the Fat Duck! I'm reading it more as a slow story book. The history of the dishes, their evolution and particularly the failures are fascinating in and of themselves. Some of the nicer ways to cut the difficult corners (or in a way, "cheat") are the only things I can apply in my own cooking. Well... maybe some of the more unexpected flavour combinations might come in handy too. Haven't had the opportunity to try yet. The main feature are the stories. After the history of any single dish it's interesting to see the final application of the procedures, and just how far the kitchen staff at the Fat Duck are willing to go. (eg. "Store in cool for five days to properly infuse the flavours.") I have yet to eat at the Duck, though. Maybe sometime next year...
        radicality 13y ago
        The whole process for all their dishes is fascinating. When visiting the restaurant, I managed to get a tour of the kitchens and the lab by one of the cooks. It takes from 6-24 months for a dish to go from idea to being on the table in the restaurant. It's so much better to visit the restaurant with some knowledge of Heston's philosophy and the dishes. Having skimmed through the book and watched some of Heston's shows, eating there was much more exciting. If you are interested, [here](http://rafal.io/posts/the-fat-duck.html http://rafal.io/posts/the-fat-duck.html) is my write-up of my evening there together with some photographs. I definitely recommend you attend. Even though it's very expensive, I always prefer to spend money on experiences I'll remember, such as this one.
        ghaff 13y ago
        I think Heston Blumenthal at Home may be a bit more accessible. (It's also a really attractive book.) It still makes use of a fair amount of sous vide, pressure cookers, whipping siphons, etc. Sous vide equipment in particular is getting much more affordable for home cooks but it's still not something everyone had.
  - eps 13y ago
    I'm sure his book is awesome, but blanching and parboiling are such rudimentary cooking techniques that they are described in virtually every cooking book that's not just a recipe collection.
- xdissent 13y ago
  I use this to cut my fries: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004RDFH/ref=oh_details_o07_s02_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004RDFH/ref=oh_details_o... I don't blanch them, I first soak them, dry them, then deep fry them twice per Alton Brown's guidance: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/chips-and-fish-recipe/index.html http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/chips-and-fis... They're perfect.
- dmunoz 13y ago
  As sjtrny already mentioned, it's not a secret and Kenji would not have been stuck not knowing it. What he found interesting was that "McDonald's does indeed use a double fry method, but it's far from the traditional one." It's indeed interesting the method McDonald's has ended up with. I blanched many potatoes as a young lad working in a restaurant. Interestingly, the local farmers who we sourced our potatoes from often came in for lunch and requested single fried fries (unblanched). They were certainly a lot different, mostly not as crispy a crust. bostik has also already mentioned that Heston Blumenthal covers a method in detail in the fish and chips episode of his In Search of Perfection series. I've only gone all the way with this method once, but it is fairly close to what we did at the restaurant, only we never froze our fries, only refrigerated them. It does make nicer fries than simply double frying, but not by a wide margin. Fries are a bit of an ongoing project for me. I'm trying to find some reasonable method to have nice baked fries. What I get so far is serviceable, but not nearly as nice as frying them. Edit: I forgot to add the second reason I wanted to make this post: Kenji has an ongoing series on Serious Eats called The Food Lab. He takes the same semi-scientific approach to certain dishes as in the submitted article. Another good post in the series is on dry-aging beef at home [0]. American's Test Kitchen [1] tends to do the same thing, but they only really share the final result with a few tidbits on their process of discovery. [0] http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-dry-aging-beef-at-home.html http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/the-food-lab-complete-gui... [1] http://www.americastestkitchen.com/ http://www.americastestkitchen.com/
  - dirtyaura 13y ago
    Have you tried Blumenthal's roast potatoes from In search for perfection? Same goal as in fries, crispy outerior and fluffy interior. No frier needed and they are just - well - perfect and relatively easy to make for a Blumenthal's recipe. My wife was totally in awe when I made them the first time.
- DanBC 13y ago
  A number of mandoline slicers will do this. Be careful, it's ridiculously easy to slice way fingertips with these. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Selkin-Borner-V1-Slicer-White/dp/B005185BKA%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q%26tag%3Dduc08-21%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB005185BKA http://www.amazon.co.uk/Selkin-Borner-V1-Slicer-White/dp/B00... etc etc etc.
beedogs 13y ago
Really weird; I just made these last night and the post shows up here today. They're delicious, by the way.
treenyc 13y ago
Now can someone PLEASE post the recipe for KFC batter. I walked into a KFC and ask to buy a bag of batter, it is how funny they turned very serious all the sudden and asked me to leave to store. I mean I just want to use it on real organic chicken. Anyone???
- chestnut-tree 13y ago
  "Now can someone PLEASE post the recipe for KFC batter." http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/jul/24/kfc-secret-recipe-revealed http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/jul...
  - treenyc 13y ago
    oh chestnut-tree, I love you! I will look to make this in Denmark at some point.
- DanBC 13y ago
  But they use 12 secret spices!
DigitalTurk 13y ago
> McDonald's french fries are great. At their best, they are everything a french fry should be: salty, crisp, light, and not greasy. Funny. I tend to think of super thin fries as an American thing. Fries from McDonald's, in particular, taste like cardboard to me. Then again, I'm Belgian.
- riffraff 13y ago
  I am italian living in hungary and I never considered McD fries "amazing". I have never met anyone who didn't prefer home made ones/random shop one's either. So, last time this article came up on HN I generously filed it under "maybe fries in fast food chains in the US are different than fries in US fast food chains everywhere else".
  - malaporte 13y ago
    I think they are. I'm a Canadian living in France, and I pretty much hate McDonalds here. Fries are soggy and not salted enough, burgers are completely messed up, and the service is impressively slow. I tried several places, it's all more of the same. Everytime I go back to a McDonalds in Canada I find the food just tastes better. It's still fast food, but I'm enjoying it so much more.
    - cocoflunchy 13y ago
      It's funny because it's the exact opposite for me as a French guy living in the US. I find MacDonald's to be vastly superior in France, and it's also the opinion of all my French friends who have tried both. They say that McDonald's adapt their recipes to the taste of the country they're in, which these anecdotal observations would support :) It's a shame we don't have 5 Guys though...
  - DigitalTurk 13y ago
    I don't remember McDonald's fries tasting better in the US than in Europe, but then I don't go to McDonald's all that often. (I do grant that there are subtle differences between McDonald's restaurants in different regions.) There's actually a second type of American fries that I think is somewhat better than the ones at McDonald's. They're called Cajun fries [1]. They're made in an oven and are a bit spicy. You can get them at cheap fast food places like Checkers or fancier hamburger places like Five Guys. [1] http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/cajun-oven-fries-recipe/index.html# http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/cajun-oven-fr...!
apunic 13y ago
> I find it remarkable that the bigwigs have discovered a way to create a frozen fry that even a one armed eyeless chimp has trouble screwing up. I find it in general remarkable that McDonalds' business processes seem to be so foolproof that any one armed eyeless chimp is able to create BigMacs, Hamburgers and any other McDonalds dish always and anywhere in the world with the same high quality.
- venomsnake 13y ago
  Obligatory joel article. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000024.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000024.html
  - darkxanthos 13y ago
    Now that I've had personal experience with FogBugz (from FogCreek) I heavily discount Joel's wisdom.
    - selimthegrim 13y ago
      What was wrong with it?
      - darkxanthos 13y ago
        It was slow, full text searching didn't work (literally), when using their API to delete repos and recreate them there would be race conditions that would leave us in a state where their support would have to go data spelunking on their end to correct them. I could nitpick the GUI and such but the real issues were these fundamental problems. I was shocked. This happened for years.
tombrossman 13y ago
For anyone interested in a broader look at the science of cooking I strongly recommend 'How to read a french fry' by Russ Parsons. It explains equally important factors like the need for natural soaps (surfactants) in the oil as it breaks down, for that perfect color. If you've ever tried to fry something until golden brown in a perfectly clean pot using new oil you've run up against this. The food is still white when it's done and cooking it until brown means overcooking it. You have to save a bit of the old oil to mix in with the new stuff. It's an easy read with recipes for several dishes and the book can serve as a really solid base for understanding how to be a much better cook.
DanBC 13y ago
This article takes a while to get to the good bits, which are: triple cooking (blanch, cool fry, hot fry) and the sciencey stuff about sugars and starches. I love the batches and notes about temperature. This is something I need to start doing so I can recreate the sucessful cooking I do. What I'd have liked to see more of was a discussion of different types of potato, and different treatment of the oil.
nicklovescode 13y ago
Two other recipes by the awesome chefs at ChefSteps Thick: http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/thick-cut-french-fries http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/thick-cut-french-fries Thin: http://www.chefsteps.com/classes/science-of-poutine/#/thin-cut-french-fries http://www.chefsteps.com/classes/science-of-poutine/#/thin-c... disclaimer: I'm working on a project with ChefSteps
sampo 13y ago
Here are Heston Blumenthal's triple-cooked chips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIiQbeVHgX0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIiQbeVHgX0
- dhughes 13y ago
  I watch all Heston's videos he seems like he makes fantastic food, I think he shows how to make really good food sometimes in a different way not pretentious but fun.
Theodores 13y ago
One thing that McDonalds do is add the salt to the fries for you. This seems a little bit odd if you have been used to buying 'chips' from a British Fish and Chip shop. However the 'salt' they add isn't just salt. It is a mix of sugar and salt. This does work wonders for making them taste really nice, it works well with regular 'chips' too. Yet it is tantamount to deception, unless you are in the know you would never imagine that McDonalds fries are sugar coated.
- JoeAltmaier 13y ago
  Urban legend, I believe.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - Theodores 13y ago
    Cite sources? I have none either. However I asked a chef I worked with why his chips tasted so good. He said that it was the sugar in the salt that made the difference, a trick he learned at a British McDonalds. Hearsay true, however sugar in the salt does actually work, as it should given our tastes: sugar/salt/fat = yum!
    - min_wage_slave 13y ago
      As someone recently employed by a Golden Arches franchise, I will attest to using only "table salt" to salt french fries. More specifically, I'd load the fry salting device from a 4-lb paper box of commercial non-iodized table salt [1]. If you'd like to verify this fact at your local McDonalds go ahead and order some fries "no salt" and do the salting yourself. As a bonus, you'll also most likely ensure you get fresh fries. Don't do this in the drive thru, as it's kind of an asshole move. 3:20 for fresh fries. [1] looks just like this: http://www.webstaurantstore.com/bulk-iodized-table-salt-4-lb-box/102SALT4.html http://www.webstaurantstore.com/bulk-iodized-table-salt-4-lb...
      - 13y ago
dylnclrk 13y ago
I'll concede that Kenji (the food lab author) definitely has a hacker-ish point of view when it comes to cooking, but I feel like we may be diluting the content of HN with a french fry recipe. Maybe everyone just loves fries? Oh and for the record, I'm a huge Food Lab fan and have been a regular reader for some time... But I think that this Cook's Illustrated recipe beats Kenji's fries (and it's way easier too): http://deep-fried.food.com/recipe/easier-french-fries-cold-oil-method-cooks-illustrated-415262 http://deep-fried.food.com/recipe/easier-french-fries-cold-o...
tptacek 13y ago
If you like this but want to see how you might take it a step further: http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/05/12/the-quest-for-french-fry-supremacy-2-blanching-armageddon/ http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/05/12/the-quest-for-french... I believe Kenji Lopez-Alt, the author of the Serious Eats article, is the "Former Cooks Illustrated Test Cook" quoted at the end of Dave Arnold's article. (Everything at Cooking Issues is amazing, especially Dave Arnold's weekly podcast; also, you can get Pectinex Ultra SPL from Modernist Pantry online).
- batbomb 13y ago
  did you order your searzall?
  - tptacek 13y ago
    Yep. Of course. They radically underpriced the thing.
  - stephen 13y ago
    Gah! I am just now seeing this...looks really awesome.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      We're not getting them until June (I didn't order early-access; I opted for the 30 minute Dave Arnold phone call instead, which in retrospect seems silly because I can probably get that on any given Tuesday when he does his podcast) --- I imagine that by the time the Kickstarter units ship, people who order normal Searzalls will have much less time to wait.
- mattmaroon 13y ago
  I just got some SPL shipped to me today. I have a theory on how to make lime juice clarification easier, but will be making some French Fries too.
dlsx 13y ago
As much as I like the time and write up done here, McDonalds french fries are not necessarily made of 100% potatoes. They contain wheat/gluten and this is what gives those McD fries their addictive taste. It's not even a french fry, it's a piece of french toast. So I think the author has really bad taste, and I hate McDonalds so it was hard to enjoy this article.
jonnathanson 13y ago
To me, the most interesting part of this article was the quest to obtain the frozen fries in the first place. I'm amazed a McDonald's manager gave them out. Corporations like McDonald's rely on trade secrets: things that can't necessarily be patented, or which might be placed in danger by being patented. (Applying for a patent makes a recipe public record, and the lifetime of the patent is finite.) The secret recipe for Coke, or in this case the secrets behind McD's fries, are worth billions of dollars. For all the McD's manager knew, Grant might have been a rival doing some corporate espionage. Or he might have been a government inspector of some sort. It sounds farfetched. But many people in store management in retail and fast food are very aware of these possibilities, and they're trained to err on the side of extreme caution. Kenji isn't lying when he says the employee/manager in question could get fired for having given these out. Trade secrets in multi-billion-dollar corporations are a fascinating subject: they're often tied to the most seemingly minute details, and they're guarded as carefully as gold.
- yetanotherphd 13y ago
  I doubt McDonalds really cares that much about their trade secrets. Even though I love McDonalds fries (you can almost taste the oppression and cultural hegemony), perfectly emulating McDonald's fries is always going to be a tiny niche. No competitor is going to want their fries to be exactly the same as in McDonalds since brands want to position themselves as interesting and unique. That said, I don't really like the deception he (and his agents) practiced, but it seems like a minor sin in the scheme of things.
  - jonnathanson 13y ago
    They have about $1.7 billion in intangible assets on their balance sheet, of which trade secrets are not necessarily delineated but are a significant component. I have no real idea if the fries are a trade secret; that much is pure speculation. But my point was more that I wouldn't be surprised if the fries were a trade secret, as such is the norm for large food companies. You'd be surprised at the level of granularity involved in food company trade secrets. It's not so much about protecting the quality of McDonald's fries; it's about protecting the properties of those fries that permit logistics at McDonalds-level scale: fries that are designed a certain way as to always cook consistently despite freezing, transportation across complex supply lines, inconsistent on-site storage and preparation, etc. It's not a huge stretch to call McD's fries a product of engineering as much as nature. Source: http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/investors/sec_filings.html http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/investors/sec_filings.html

193 points by shawndumas 13y ago

Gotta love a) this guy's passion for fries, b) that McDonalds gave away their secret recipe (blanching) without which Kenji seemed to be totally stuck, and c) the vinegar trick to make it easier for us to do back at home. He doesn't mention what's he using to cut the fries?

sjtrny 13y ago
It's hardly a secret. In fact one of the worlds most renowned chefs, Heston Blumenthal, openly describes the practice.
- bostik 13y ago
  I'm actually in the middle of The Fat Duck Cookbook. Blumenthal's recipe for top-notch pub chips (large and slightly bulky, not thin like fries) even goes by the name "triple-cooked chips". In the TV series, In Search of Perfection, he goes the extra mile to figure out a way to reproduce the recipe in reasonably well equipped home kitchens. One of the many tricks is that having salt in the blanching water is mandatory. It helps to create the porous surface. His recipe is so good I can make delicious chips at home even without access to a temperature controlled fat fryer. (Incidentally, Jamie Oliver blanches whole skinned potatoes before roasting them in the oven. I've tried that too and it does make a big difference to how they come up.) But the vinegar trick was something I hadn't heard before. I'll have to give it a try, because it would seem to give some extra leeway with timing. For a home cook, that is an important factor.
  - gjm11 13y ago
    Pretty much everyone parboils potatoes before roasting them in the oven. (About 10 minutes in lightly salted water. After boiling them and draining the cooking water, put the lid back on the pan briefly and give it a good shake to roughen the surface of the potatoes. You'll get better crunchy outsides that way.) Is that what Jamie Oliver recommends, or is it some further less standard trick?
    - bostik 13y ago
      > Is that what Jamie Oliver recommends, or is it some further less standard trick? Just one deviation: steam-dry step instead of putting the lid back on. The potatoes are poured out to a colander and left there for a few minutes.
      - sanityinc 13y ago
        Yes, and tossing them around gently in the colander is the ideal way to roughen the surface. This is also Raymond Blanc's method. If the water can be kept vigorously boiling, it's usually only necessary to parboil the potatoes for a few minutes: just enough to soften the outer 5mm or so.
  - radicality 13y ago
    By "in the middle", do you mean you are actually recreating the dishes as you go along? I have the book also, and it has some nice stories, but the recipes require not only a lot of skill and time, but also equipment. Also, eating at the Fat Duck was my best restaurant experience ever!
    - bostik 13y ago
      Good grief, no. The book is unapologetic in the extreme, and the recipes are practically impossible to recreate without a wide array of kitchen equipment. They really are the recipes used at the Fat Duck! I'm reading it more as a slow story book. The history of the dishes, their evolution and particularly the failures are fascinating in and of themselves. Some of the nicer ways to cut the difficult corners (or in a way, "cheat") are the only things I can apply in my own cooking. Well... maybe some of the more unexpected flavour combinations might come in handy too. Haven't had the opportunity to try yet. The main feature are the stories. After the history of any single dish it's interesting to see the final application of the procedures, and just how far the kitchen staff at the Fat Duck are willing to go. (eg. "Store in cool for five days to properly infuse the flavours.") I have yet to eat at the Duck, though. Maybe sometime next year...
      - radicality 13y ago
        The whole process for all their dishes is fascinating. When visiting the restaurant, I managed to get a tour of the kitchens and the lab by one of the cooks. It takes from 6-24 months for a dish to go from idea to being on the table in the restaurant. It's so much better to visit the restaurant with some knowledge of Heston's philosophy and the dishes. Having skimmed through the book and watched some of Heston's shows, eating there was much more exciting. If you are interested, [here](http://rafal.io/posts/the-fat-duck.html http://rafal.io/posts/the-fat-duck.html) is my write-up of my evening there together with some photographs. I definitely recommend you attend. Even though it's very expensive, I always prefer to spend money on experiences I'll remember, such as this one.
      - ghaff 13y ago
        I think Heston Blumenthal at Home may be a bit more accessible. (It's also a really attractive book.) It still makes use of a fair amount of sous vide, pressure cookers, whipping siphons, etc. Sous vide equipment in particular is getting much more affordable for home cooks but it's still not something everyone had.
- eps 13y ago
  I'm sure his book is awesome, but blanching and parboiling are such rudimentary cooking techniques that they are described in virtually every cooking book that's not just a recipe collection.
xdissent 13y ago
I use this to cut my fries: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004RDFH/ref=oh_details_o07_s02_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00004RDFH/ref=oh_details_o... I don't blanch them, I first soak them, dry them, then deep fry them twice per Alton Brown's guidance: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/chips-and-fish-recipe/index.html http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/chips-and-fis... They're perfect.
dmunoz 13y ago
As sjtrny already mentioned, it's not a secret and Kenji would not have been stuck not knowing it. What he found interesting was that "McDonald's does indeed use a double fry method, but it's far from the traditional one." It's indeed interesting the method McDonald's has ended up with. I blanched many potatoes as a young lad working in a restaurant. Interestingly, the local farmers who we sourced our potatoes from often came in for lunch and requested single fried fries (unblanched). They were certainly a lot different, mostly not as crispy a crust. bostik has also already mentioned that Heston Blumenthal covers a method in detail in the fish and chips episode of his In Search of Perfection series. I've only gone all the way with this method once, but it is fairly close to what we did at the restaurant, only we never froze our fries, only refrigerated them. It does make nicer fries than simply double frying, but not by a wide margin. Fries are a bit of an ongoing project for me. I'm trying to find some reasonable method to have nice baked fries. What I get so far is serviceable, but not nearly as nice as frying them. Edit: I forgot to add the second reason I wanted to make this post: Kenji has an ongoing series on Serious Eats called The Food Lab. He takes the same semi-scientific approach to certain dishes as in the submitted article. Another good post in the series is on dry-aging beef at home [0]. American's Test Kitchen [1] tends to do the same thing, but they only really share the final result with a few tidbits on their process of discovery. [0] http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/the-food-lab-complete-guide-to-dry-aging-beef-at-home.html http://www.seriouseats.com/2013/03/the-food-lab-complete-gui... [1] http://www.americastestkitchen.com/ http://www.americastestkitchen.com/
- dirtyaura 13y ago
  Have you tried Blumenthal's roast potatoes from In search for perfection? Same goal as in fries, crispy outerior and fluffy interior. No frier needed and they are just - well - perfect and relatively easy to make for a Blumenthal's recipe. My wife was totally in awe when I made them the first time.
DanBC 13y ago
A number of mandoline slicers will do this. Be careful, it's ridiculously easy to slice way fingertips with these. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Selkin-Borner-V1-Slicer-White/dp/B005185BKA%3FSubscriptionId%3DAKIAILSHYYTFIVPWUY6Q%26tag%3Dduc08-21%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB005185BKA http://www.amazon.co.uk/Selkin-Borner-V1-Slicer-White/dp/B00... etc etc etc.

beedogs 13y ago

Really weird; I just made these last night and the post shows up here today. They're delicious, by the way.

treenyc 13y ago

Now can someone PLEASE post the recipe for KFC batter. I walked into a KFC and ask to buy a bag of batter, it is how funny they turned very serious all the sudden and asked me to leave to store. I mean I just want to use it on real organic chicken. Anyone???

chestnut-tree 13y ago
"Now can someone PLEASE post the recipe for KFC batter." http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/jul/24/kfc-secret-recipe-revealed http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/wordofmouth/2009/jul...
- treenyc 13y ago
  oh chestnut-tree, I love you! I will look to make this in Denmark at some point.
DanBC 13y ago
But they use 12 secret spices!

DigitalTurk 13y ago

> McDonald's french fries are great. At their best, they are everything a french fry should be: salty, crisp, light, and not greasy. Funny. I tend to think of super thin fries as an American thing. Fries from McDonald's, in particular, taste like cardboard to me. Then again, I'm Belgian.

riffraff 13y ago
I am italian living in hungary and I never considered McD fries "amazing". I have never met anyone who didn't prefer home made ones/random shop one's either. So, last time this article came up on HN I generously filed it under "maybe fries in fast food chains in the US are different than fries in US fast food chains everywhere else".
- malaporte 13y ago
  I think they are. I'm a Canadian living in France, and I pretty much hate McDonalds here. Fries are soggy and not salted enough, burgers are completely messed up, and the service is impressively slow. I tried several places, it's all more of the same. Everytime I go back to a McDonalds in Canada I find the food just tastes better. It's still fast food, but I'm enjoying it so much more.
  - cocoflunchy 13y ago
    It's funny because it's the exact opposite for me as a French guy living in the US. I find MacDonald's to be vastly superior in France, and it's also the opinion of all my French friends who have tried both. They say that McDonald's adapt their recipes to the taste of the country they're in, which these anecdotal observations would support :) It's a shame we don't have 5 Guys though...
- DigitalTurk 13y ago
  I don't remember McDonald's fries tasting better in the US than in Europe, but then I don't go to McDonald's all that often. (I do grant that there are subtle differences between McDonald's restaurants in different regions.) There's actually a second type of American fries that I think is somewhat better than the ones at McDonald's. They're called Cajun fries [1]. They're made in an oven and are a bit spicy. You can get them at cheap fast food places like Checkers or fancier hamburger places like Five Guys. [1] http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/cajun-oven-fries-recipe/index.html# http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/rachael-ray/cajun-oven-fr...!

apunic 13y ago

> I find it remarkable that the bigwigs have discovered a way to create a frozen fry that even a one armed eyeless chimp has trouble screwing up. I find it in general remarkable that McDonalds' business processes seem to be so foolproof that any one armed eyeless chimp is able to create BigMacs, Hamburgers and any other McDonalds dish always and anywhere in the world with the same high quality.

venomsnake 13y ago
Obligatory joel article. http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000024.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000024.html
- darkxanthos 13y ago
  Now that I've had personal experience with FogBugz (from FogCreek) I heavily discount Joel's wisdom.
  - selimthegrim 13y ago
    What was wrong with it?
    - darkxanthos 13y ago
      It was slow, full text searching didn't work (literally), when using their API to delete repos and recreate them there would be race conditions that would leave us in a state where their support would have to go data spelunking on their end to correct them. I could nitpick the GUI and such but the real issues were these fundamental problems. I was shocked. This happened for years.

tombrossman 13y ago

For anyone interested in a broader look at the science of cooking I strongly recommend 'How to read a french fry' by Russ Parsons. It explains equally important factors like the need for natural soaps (surfactants) in the oil as it breaks down, for that perfect color. If you've ever tried to fry something until golden brown in a perfectly clean pot using new oil you've run up against this. The food is still white when it's done and cooking it until brown means overcooking it. You have to save a bit of the old oil to mix in with the new stuff. It's an easy read with recipes for several dishes and the book can serve as a really solid base for understanding how to be a much better cook.

DanBC 13y ago

This article takes a while to get to the good bits, which are: triple cooking (blanch, cool fry, hot fry) and the sciencey stuff about sugars and starches. I love the batches and notes about temperature. This is something I need to start doing so I can recreate the sucessful cooking I do. What I'd have liked to see more of was a discussion of different types of potato, and different treatment of the oil.

nicklovescode 13y ago

Two other recipes by the awesome chefs at ChefSteps Thick: http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/thick-cut-french-fries http://www.chefsteps.com/activities/thick-cut-french-fries Thin: http://www.chefsteps.com/classes/science-of-poutine/#/thin-cut-french-fries http://www.chefsteps.com/classes/science-of-poutine/#/thin-c... disclaimer: I'm working on a project with ChefSteps

sampo 13y ago

Here are Heston Blumenthal's triple-cooked chips: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIiQbeVHgX0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIiQbeVHgX0

dhughes 13y ago
I watch all Heston's videos he seems like he makes fantastic food, I think he shows how to make really good food sometimes in a different way not pretentious but fun.

Theodores 13y ago

One thing that McDonalds do is add the salt to the fries for you. This seems a little bit odd if you have been used to buying 'chips' from a British Fish and Chip shop. However the 'salt' they add isn't just salt. It is a mix of sugar and salt. This does work wonders for making them taste really nice, it works well with regular 'chips' too. Yet it is tantamount to deception, unless you are in the know you would never imagine that McDonalds fries are sugar coated.

JoeAltmaier 13y ago
Urban legend, I believe.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- Theodores 13y ago
  Cite sources? I have none either. However I asked a chef I worked with why his chips tasted so good. He said that it was the sugar in the salt that made the difference, a trick he learned at a British McDonalds. Hearsay true, however sugar in the salt does actually work, as it should given our tastes: sugar/salt/fat = yum!
  - min_wage_slave 13y ago
    As someone recently employed by a Golden Arches franchise, I will attest to using only "table salt" to salt french fries. More specifically, I'd load the fry salting device from a 4-lb paper box of commercial non-iodized table salt [1]. If you'd like to verify this fact at your local McDonalds go ahead and order some fries "no salt" and do the salting yourself. As a bonus, you'll also most likely ensure you get fresh fries. Don't do this in the drive thru, as it's kind of an asshole move. 3:20 for fresh fries. [1] looks just like this: http://www.webstaurantstore.com/bulk-iodized-table-salt-4-lb-box/102SALT4.html http://www.webstaurantstore.com/bulk-iodized-table-salt-4-lb...
    - 13y ago

dylnclrk 13y ago

I'll concede that Kenji (the food lab author) definitely has a hacker-ish point of view when it comes to cooking, but I feel like we may be diluting the content of HN with a french fry recipe. Maybe everyone just loves fries? Oh and for the record, I'm a huge Food Lab fan and have been a regular reader for some time... But I think that this Cook's Illustrated recipe beats Kenji's fries (and it's way easier too): http://deep-fried.food.com/recipe/easier-french-fries-cold-oil-method-cooks-illustrated-415262 http://deep-fried.food.com/recipe/easier-french-fries-cold-o...

tptacek 13y ago

If you like this but want to see how you might take it a step further: http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/05/12/the-quest-for-french-fry-supremacy-2-blanching-armageddon/ http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/05/12/the-quest-for-french... I believe Kenji Lopez-Alt, the author of the Serious Eats article, is the "Former Cooks Illustrated Test Cook" quoted at the end of Dave Arnold's article. (Everything at Cooking Issues is amazing, especially Dave Arnold's weekly podcast; also, you can get Pectinex Ultra SPL from Modernist Pantry online).

batbomb 13y ago
did you order your searzall?
- tptacek 13y ago
  Yep. Of course. They radically underpriced the thing.
- stephen 13y ago
  Gah! I am just now seeing this...looks really awesome.
  - tptacek 13y ago
    We're not getting them until June (I didn't order early-access; I opted for the 30 minute Dave Arnold phone call instead, which in retrospect seems silly because I can probably get that on any given Tuesday when he does his podcast) --- I imagine that by the time the Kickstarter units ship, people who order normal Searzalls will have much less time to wait.
mattmaroon 13y ago
I just got some SPL shipped to me today. I have a theory on how to make lime juice clarification easier, but will be making some French Fries too.

dlsx 13y ago

As much as I like the time and write up done here, McDonalds french fries are not necessarily made of 100% potatoes. They contain wheat/gluten and this is what gives those McD fries their addictive taste. It's not even a french fry, it's a piece of french toast. So I think the author has really bad taste, and I hate McDonalds so it was hard to enjoy this article.

jonnathanson 13y ago

To me, the most interesting part of this article was the quest to obtain the frozen fries in the first place. I'm amazed a McDonald's manager gave them out. Corporations like McDonald's rely on trade secrets: things that can't necessarily be patented, or which might be placed in danger by being patented. (Applying for a patent makes a recipe public record, and the lifetime of the patent is finite.) The secret recipe for Coke, or in this case the secrets behind McD's fries, are worth billions of dollars. For all the McD's manager knew, Grant might have been a rival doing some corporate espionage. Or he might have been a government inspector of some sort. It sounds farfetched. But many people in store management in retail and fast food are very aware of these possibilities, and they're trained to err on the side of extreme caution. Kenji isn't lying when he says the employee/manager in question could get fired for having given these out. Trade secrets in multi-billion-dollar corporations are a fascinating subject: they're often tied to the most seemingly minute details, and they're guarded as carefully as gold.

yetanotherphd 13y ago
I doubt McDonalds really cares that much about their trade secrets. Even though I love McDonalds fries (you can almost taste the oppression and cultural hegemony), perfectly emulating McDonald's fries is always going to be a tiny niche. No competitor is going to want their fries to be exactly the same as in McDonalds since brands want to position themselves as interesting and unique. That said, I don't really like the deception he (and his agents) practiced, but it seems like a minor sin in the scheme of things.
- jonnathanson 13y ago
  They have about $1.7 billion in intangible assets on their balance sheet, of which trade secrets are not necessarily delineated but are a significant component. I have no real idea if the fries are a trade secret; that much is pure speculation. But my point was more that I wouldn't be surprised if the fries were a trade secret, as such is the norm for large food companies. You'd be surprised at the level of granularity involved in food company trade secrets. It's not so much about protecting the quality of McDonald's fries; it's about protecting the properties of those fries that permit logistics at McDonalds-level scale: fries that are designed a certain way as to always cook consistently despite freezing, transportation across complex supply lines, inconsistent on-site storage and preparation, etc. It's not a huge stretch to call McD's fries a product of engineering as much as nature. Source: http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/investors/sec_filings.html http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/investors/sec_filings.html