Sous Vide French Fries
Speed - 93%
Simplicity - 95%
Tastiness - 100%
96%
Excellent!
These fries are simply perfect. Soft like mashed potatoes on the inside and brittle and golden on the outside.
Ingredients
- 500 Grams Potatoes peeled and cut into half-inch batons
- 1/2 Cup Water
- 1/2 Tablespoon Salt
- 1/4 Teaspoon Sugar
- 1/4 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- Vegetable Oil for frying
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Stir together water, salt, sugar, and baking soda.
- Put potatoes in a sous vide bag with the brine.
- Cook for 15 minutes at 194F.
- Air dry the potatoes.
- Fry at 130C for 7 minutes.
- Drain and let cool.
- Fry for a minute at 190C.
French fries. This humble side may be the among the easiest to prepare. . . if you'll do fine with mediocre to average results, that is.
But who doesn't appreciate a perfectly-cooked serving of these potatoes? Soft and pillowy like mashed potatoes inside a glass-like brittle crust. To be honest, getting your french fries to this level of perfection requires much more effort and technique than you might think.
It all begins with selecting the perfect variety of potatoes. You'll want something that has a lower moisture content like Russets or Burbanks. The high moisture content of other varieties will keep your fries from crisping up optimally however you try.
Peel your potatoes and cut them into batons as uniformly-sized as you can. Again, attention to this little detail would make or break your french fries. Cutting your potatoes unevenly would mean that they would cook unevenly as well.
While working, have a bowl of cold water on your workstation. Oxidation will start as soon as you peel those potatoes, causing them to turn brown really quickly. Soaking them in cold water would slow this process down significantly.
Next, make up a simple brine of water, salt, sugar, and baking soda.
The salt and baking soda will aid in drawing out any excess moisture from the potatoes, ensuring that they crisp up beautifully.
The sugar, on the other hand, will try to mimic the natural sweetness of potatoes which may have been lost during the entire preparation process.
Get everything in a sous vide bag, potatoes and brine, keeping them in an even single layer so they'll cook evenly in the water bath.
The cooking begins with this first phase. The potatoes have to be cooked at a precise temperature of 194F for about 15 minutes. This controlled cooking will render the potato insides soft and fluffy while keeping their structure intact.
As soon as the time's up, get the potatoes out of the bag and let them air-dry. Getting them as dry as possible would again make them fry to a perfect crisp.
Spreading them on some paper towels would be a good idea.
Now they're ready for the second phase of cooking. This would be a slow fry over low heat, 130F to be exact. Depending on the thickness of your potatoes, this should take between five and ten minutes.
Make sure to use enough oil so the temperature does not drop as you get the potatoes in, or, work in small batches.
No need to set-up a timer. You'll know they're ready when they float on top of the oil and develop a loose blistered-like exterior.
These fries are almost good to go after the first fry, lacking just a rapid fry at high temperature to get the outsides crispy.
They'll be perfect to store in the freezer at this point too.
To finish, get your oil heated up to 190C and give these fries a minute or so to crisp and turn golden.
Ingredients
- 500 Grams Potatoes peeled and cut into half-inch batons
- 1/2 Cup Water
- 1/2 Tablespoon Salt
- 1/4 Teaspoon Sugar
- 1/4 Teaspoon Baking Soda
- Vegetable Oil for frying
- Salt to taste
Instructions
- Stir together water, salt, sugar, and baking soda.
- Put potatoes in a sous vide bag with the brine.
- Cook for 15 minutes at 194F.
- Air dry the potatoes.
- Fry at 130C for 7 minutes.
- Drain and let cool.
- Fry for a minute at 190C.
Are the frying temps correct? They seem more like C than F.
Yup. Typo!
190F? Are you sure you don’t mean 190C? 190F is my coffee temperature. 190C is more for frying french fries.
Yup. Typo!
No typo – 194F seems reasonable for sous vide cooking – my sous vide immersion cooker doesn’t go as high as 194C.
The typo has since been fixed.