Cold Oil French Fries (Chips) Absorb Less Oil

I saw this method of chip making (French fries if you’re American) this week on  America’s Test Kitchen  and couldn’t wait to try it because it just seemed so easy and anything that’s easy if you have kids is a done deal for me.  The other reason and most convincing was the topsy-turvy notion that starting to cook chips with oil at room temperature actually absorbed a third less oil than the more conventional method of frying them twice.  Now I was listening…

Don’t you love it when something comes along that turns your culinary world upside down?  I have or rather had this deep rooted imagine of anything fried in very low temperature surely has to absorb more oil, since it will be frying for longer soaking up oil.  This reminds me of the old idea of browning your meat before casseroling/stewing seals in the juices…remember that one?  I know!  Seems crazy now doesn’t it?  

This method appears to be first written by Joel Robuchon, but it has been around for a long while before that, it seems he’s not the creator.  Here’s the  NY Times article  on it.

I’m addicted to America’s Test Kitchen because they’re nerdy, testing out recipes in many different ways.  The area they really lack understanding is when it comes to producing good easy bread, they lack knowledge and deep understanding of the subject, for example spend twice as long producing bread rolls than they need to with too much faffing around, the other area I think they lack is in Asian recipes.  But I’ve learnt plenty of interesting nerdy things especially when it comes to listening to  Guy Crosby, Professor of Nutrition, with whom if I’m honest I have a big crush…he’s a walking talking McGee book!  Can you imagine it?  I’m sort of glad he lives thousands of miles away for fear that if he lived in this country I would become a stalker…I know I would.  Just think how lucky he is.

How Cooking Potatoes From Cold Oil Works

Guy Crosby explains there is a certain amount of moisture in a potato, moisture you could squeeze out of the potato, moisture that lies on the surface of the potato and moisture in its crystal structure. Potato can only absorb oil when some of its moisture is lost, evaporated through cooking.

There is only so much water anything can hold, vegetable, rice, flour…or cotton wool for that matter…any given thing can hold a certain amount and therefore can not absorb anything else until some of that moisture has disappeared.

Moisture is lost through cooking and the more moisture is lost the more oil it absorbs.  Potatoes fried at a higher temperature, the conventional way, will lose more moisture therefore has the room to absorb more oil.

Absorbing oil has nothing to do with how long the potatoes fry for but how high they’re fry at, because that high temperature will drive away more moisture.  Frying potatoes this way will take around 25mins but the top temperature at the end reaches around 300F / 149C where’s in the conventional frying the potatoes may only be in the oil for 10 minutes but the temperature will reach around 350-375F / 176-190C.

The other disadvantage to the conventional method of frying first at lower temperature, then cooling, and finally frying it at higher temperature is, on cooling the surface oil from the first round of frying will soak into the potato.  Remember the first round of frying doesn’t seal the outside of the potato, it only cooks the potato inside and the soft surface area of the potato will absorb that oil while waiting for the second frying.

Other Good Reasons

You use less oil in the pan, I measure how much oil I had used after frying and in my 24cm (9 1/2 in) wide big deep pan I had only the depth of 2 cm (0.79 in) of oil.

Also because you fry the oil at lower temperature you can use it again a few times as it doesn’t damage it like high temperature does.

You can rinse the potatoes after cutting, drain and put them straight into the oil without having to dry them first because the oil is cold.

There is not danger of splattering when adding the potatoes.

This morning I added just over 1 kilo of peeled potatoes, cut as neatly and quite thin…I’m not good with evenness…but this is home cooking and kids are hungry…and frankly I wasn’t going to use a ruler.

Then added enough oil to cover the potatoes as you see here.

I put the pan on my large ring on medium heat.

IMPORTANT

This part is really important so don’t blame me if you mess it up!

Once the oil is on a rolling boil like below, NOT like the one above where it’s started to boil…only when on a rolling boil do you set your timer for 15 minutes.

And it will carry on like this for 15 minutes.

IMPORTANT

Another important point said by America’s Test Kitchen, DO NOT touch them during this time or you will break them.  They’re cooking inside at this stage and the outside is still soft and fragile therefore easily breaks up.

Towards the end you’ll see them beginning to brown.

Once the timer goes OR you see them going brown around the edges then you can lift them and move them around.

The timer is there as a guide but you have to take into account how thinly or thickly you’ve cut yours therefore towards the end keep an eye they’re not browning too much before you have the change to move them and separate them.

In the beginning you start moving them around the pan gently but as they brown more and more you can be more robust with them.

When I first started to move them I could see I had a dozen at the bottom that really got very brown and would’ve blacken by the time the others were ready.  This shows me I could afford to have either down the heat by tiny bit or else start to move them around 2mins before the timer went off.

Don’t stop stirring them at this point, this stages goes fast really quickly and because they’re fairly dry by now they colour rapidly.

When you feel they are all brown enough take them out.  I took mine out about 30 seconds too soon because some could’ve been more crispy but plenty of them were and stayed crisp when cold.

First time baking or frying anything is a trial for your oven/stove/pan/size of food.

Obviously here with my unequal sized chips some are going to be perfect while others are on the verge.

To show you how little oil I had dripping from them, this was the first paper towel I put them in before moving to some clean in order to maintain crispness.

The second paper towel had no fat on it at all…I was quite amazed really.

Apart from the less oil, what I loved about this method was how much more relaxed it was to make them for the home cook.  

This wouldn’t work in a professional kitchen where having chips half prepare makes perfect sense, also there’s a limit to how many you can fry at any one time as you should leave plenty of room in the pan.

For a family meal I could put the potatoes in the oil as soon as they were cut and washed and go about preparing other things without fear of over-cooking.  The last stage when you have to pay attention takes less than 5mins.  No drama of huge splutter when adding cold chips to very hot oil.

I’m a convert to this method.

I used King Edwards because they’re known to be good for the British style roast potato, where you want a soft interior and crisp exterior which seemed to me very similar to a chip.

 

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