In Search Of The Perfect Homemade French Fry
Aug 30, 2012 Food
Yesterday the kids and I cracked out our new deep fryer. I’d already cut some potatoes and stored them overnight in the fridge in cold water. Fresh, crispy fries are a beautiful thing, and I was giddy with anticipation! I had two methods I wanted to try. My lovely and eager assistant Fiona dried the potatoes while I put the oil in the fryer.
My sister had sent me a method she was curious about:
Amy, I am counting on you to try this French fry technique and report back.
@bonappetit@selfishmom bonappetit.com/blogsandforums…— Una Traynor (@utraynor) August 21, 2012
I told her I was on it! Since this method starts with cold oil, it would be the first I would try.
But after about ten minutes I knew that the cold start method was going to be a bust – there was no way I’d be able to cook these for an hour. The fries were cooking way too fast! This method was meant to be done in a pan, where you could regulate the flame. I’ve always been too chicken to deep fry over a flame.
This first batch of fries were dark brown on the outside after only 15 minutes while still being undercooked on the inside. I have no doubt that the recipe works, but not with my deep fryer. I mean, I suppose it would be possible to figure out which temperature to set the fryer to for how long to approximate what you could do with a pan, but that seemed like a lot of trouble. Next!
Now that the oil was hot, I tried just putting the potatoes in and frying until golden. Well, when they were golden outside (after about five minutes) they were still raw inside. I let them go for another five minutes, until they were as dark as I thought I could stand them. They were cooked on the inside by this point, but limp and soggy.
Crap.
Had I bought a deep fryer for nothing? If I couldn’t even make a simple French fry, would I ever use it again?
I googled “how to make crispy french fries” and clicked on the very first result.
If I ever meet the guy who wrote this post, I will kiss him on the mouth. (I hope his wife doesn’t mind – my lust is completely food and science related.) He’s an MIT grad and chef, and I think I love him.
He set out to make McDonald’s type fries, even going so far as to get a hold of frozen McDonald’s fries for studying (not an easy task!) and made dozens of batches in his quest to get it right.
I followed his instructions as closely as I could. My fries were already cut to 3/8 inches – the smallest my potato slicer goes – instead of the McDonald’s-like 1/4 inches. I also couldn’t get my oil quite as hot as his (it never got above 340 degrees). Consequently, I had to cook for a bit longer at each step, but it worked wonderfully.
His first step calls for boiling the potatoes in vinegar water. Don’t worry, there isn’t much vinegar (we couldn’t taste it at all in the finished fries), just enough to keep the potatoes from falling apart while cooking. I had to boil mine for an extra three minutes to get them cooked through.
post vinegar boil
Then you fry them for 50 seconds (I did mine for 75). At this point you can either let them cool and move on to the final fry, or freeze them. This is genius, because you can freeze a big batch, then just take them out and do the final fry as needed – just like McDonald’s!
Finally, you do another fry. I did mine for four minutes. I let them drain, then patted them with paper towels. I threw on some salt. I was almost afraid to taste them, because if this didn’t work I wasn’t sure I wanted to try again.
They. Were. Awesome.
I called the kids over to taste them, and Jake, in his über dramatic fashion, literally bowed down to me. Then he got up, hugged me, and told me that he was never going to eat McDonald’s fries again! Success!
I somehow limited myself to six of these wonderful fries (I’d already had four during the other tests, and believe it or not, I’m deep frying on a diet).
I moved on to hush puppies, something I fell in love with when I lived in North Carolina. There were a few restaurants we frequented that put them on the table as soon as we sat down, instead of bread. Man, I miss NC.
I went straight to Paula Deen for this one, figuring that she wouldn’t let me down with a fried food recipe. Sure enough, it worked great on the first try. I didn’t have self-rising flour or self-rising cornmeal (I’d never even heard of the second one), but it was easy enough to make substitutes by adding baking powder and salt (google it).
I left the onions out, since I knew my kids would want to add some powdered sugar. They tasted like little cornmeal doughnut holes – perfection! I limited myself to three small ones, and we were done frying.
I think I’m going to try vegetables next. I’d originally ordered the fryer a couple weeks ago after craving vegetable tempura. Oreos and candy bars can’t be far behind. :-)
The best part? The scale didn’t move between yesterday and today. If I can conquer moderation with a deep fryer in the house, I can do anything.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Deep Fryer, Food, French Fries
How to Kill Those Pesky Little Fruit Flies
Aug 29, 2012 How To
I woke up yesterday morning to a fruit fly infestation. One even flew into my egg as I was scrambling it (ewwww). They’re too small to get consistently with my electric mosquito swatter and they drive me crazy. But there’s a really easy way to trap and kill just about all of them.
Take a glass or mug and pour in about a half inch of red wine vinegar (other vinegars probably work, but this is what I’ve always used and have had great luck). Cover the opening tightly with plastic wrap. Poke six or seven holes in the top with a toothpick, wiggling it a bit to make the holes big enough for a fruit fly to climb through.
Then leave it alone for a few hours. They love the smell of vinegar and will climb in to get it, and will drown. If they don’t drown immediately, they’ll have trouble crawling back out of the holes and will hang around inside until they do drown.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Fruit Flies
Ode To A Grilled Cheese
Aug 27, 2012 Weight Loss
OK, it’s not really an ode, I just liked the way that sounded. I don’t have the patience to write an ode. Not when there’s so much to watch on TV.
But I did just eat the most amazing grilled cheese. It was on my homemade sourdough bread, with half a tablespoon of real butter and a slice and a half of Kraft Deli Deluxe American cheese. I sliced the bread very thin. The whole amazing thing came out to 230 calories.
Inching closer to my weight-loss goal. Day by day. Fitting in sandwiches like that one make it easier. I’m definitely one of those people who, most of the time, would rather have a small amount of something great than eat massive amounts of so-so things all day.
And the past two days were a huge challenge. I was baking all of my favorite things, for a charity bake sale. Breads, cookies, brownies, my house smelled like all of it (still does). I was touching and smelling it all and somehow, staying away. Because I want to reach my goal that much sooner.
Yesterday I baked myself one-third of a cookie, which seemed kind-of pathetic at the time, but it was what I needed on that particular day: to get just a taste, and move on.
It’s all about balance. Life’s too short to not enjoy a grilled cheese if I really want one. But it can’t be the 800 calorie monster I would make if I didn’t care what I looked like.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: baking, Food, Weight Loss
Fix A Broken Suitcase Zipper Pull Easily
Aug 25, 2012 Product Review
No matter how much I spend on a suitcase, the sipper pulls always break within a year or two. Such a pain in the butt. After losing both main sipper pulls on my favorite suitcase, I finally decided to try to fix them myself.
I found Zippermend on Amazon, and it was so inexpensive I figured it wouldn’t work, but also that I wouldn’t waste much money trying, so I bought two. Here’s what happened:
Keep in mind, you still need someplace not broken to attach the new zipper pull to. When zipper pulls break they usually rip off, taking half of the piece that was holding them. But if you’re lucky, you’ll still have the rings that you’re supposed to put your lock into to keep the suitcase closed (you know, the ones we used to use before the TSA said they had to get into our suitcases and go through our underwear).
Tags: broken zipper, review, Travel
Me Baking + You Eating = Money for Sick Kids
Aug 23, 2012 Charity & Volunteering
I am incredibly lucky: my family is healthy. I wish that could be true for all families, but it isn’t. That’s why I’m baking this weekend, to make a small contribution to the fight against pediatric cancer.
Cookies for Kids’ Cancer was started by two parents after their son was diagnosed with cancer. Now, people like me help raise money to fund research and treatment, by getting people like you to buy our baked goods!
I’ll be baking up a storm this weekend, and delivering the goods right to your door. On Sunday August 26th I’ll be delivering throughout Brooklyn, and on Monday August 27th I’ll be delivering to Manhattan (very convenient for you if you work in the city and would like to share with your co-workers!).
I’ll be taking payment through PayPal so that I’m not going to strangers’ houses laden with cash. There is a $10 minimum per order. If the prices seem a little on the high side, please keep this in mind: I’m donating all of the ingredients (which are expensive!) so that every penny of the purchase price gets donated.
[UPDATE: If you will be attending the Springboard Conference in September in Boston, you can order cookies or brownies - pay now so that I can get the donations in, and I will make them later and bring them with me! Please get your orders in ASAP - by September 7th would be great!]
Last year, with your help, I donated $257. I would love to match that again this year, or maybe even hit $300?
Here’s what I’m offering, and anyone who knows me would attest to how awesome these all are:
Tags: bake sale, Cookies for Kids
Time To Get The Locks Fixed
Aug 23, 2012 Kids
When you’ve gone through a huge renovation where you didn’t have a door on your bedroom for a year, it’s hard to complain about the locks not working when you finally do have a door. We have these old-fashioned doorknobs with a separate lock at eye level, and once our new floors were installed and the house settled under the weight, the locks didn’t work anymore – they didn’t line up with the hole.
We shrugged. With so many things to fix around here, the locks were pretty low on the list. We’d been lucky so far. We’d taught the kids to knock…or so we thought.
This morning after my husband got out of the shower, we were goofing around. No, not that way – I mean literally, goofing around and making each other laugh. I was fully clothed – I think I was even still under the sheet. There may have been some silly noises.
All of a sudden, my husband got deadly serious and said “Did you hear somebody knock?” He went to our bedroom door, opened it, and there was Jake, with a look on his face somewhere between horror and nausea.
My husband asked him, “Jake, did you open the door?” And Jake said – very quietly – “Yes.”
We both burst out laughing. We couldn’t stop.
My husband managed to say something about always knocking first before telling Jake to go downstairs.
Time to get those locks fixed.
Before he catches us actually doing something.
And is scarred for life.
More than he is now.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Kids
Randomosity: Crazy Politics Edition
Aug 22, 2012 Randomosity
Can’t tell whether your rape was legitimate or not? This song can help you figure it out!
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Two old ladies got into a bit of a fight at a “Women for Mitt” event. Stay off their lawns.
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Soledad O’Brien has gotten a lot of credit lately for standing her ground against untrue talking points, but here’s the really sad thing: this shouldn’t be noteworthy. This is what journalists should be doing all the time.
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I thought this was really fascinating: What The Gun Control Movement Can Learn From Gay Rights.
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So the lead singer of Megadeth said that President Obama staged the Aurora, CO theater shootings. Whether that was an ill-advised stunt to remind people that his band still exists, or he’s just that much of a moron, I don’t know. But either way, it isn’t good.
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And last, here are a couple of quizzes. I scored surprisingly low on the first one, surprisingly high on the second. Not sure what that means about me. Perhaps that I need to watch less C-Span and more E!?
How American are you? Take the quiz.
Could you pass an American Citizenship test?
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Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: politics
A Stinky Hotel Problem
Aug 20, 2012 Travel
So you’re traveling. You’re staying in a hotel with your family. Unlike at home, you’re all sharing one bathroom.
It’s inevitable: someone will make the bathroom unusable…for a period of time. You know why. Don’t make me say it.
And don’t think I’m throwing my family under the bus here, either. It’s just me and Jake here at the Marriott, and I was the one who stunk the bathroom up (there, I said it).
This time, anyway.
Hotel bathrooms almost never have windows. And the ventilation system – if there is one – will not take care of the problem.
So here’s my question:
With all of the stuff in my hotel bathroom – soap, conditioner, lotion, mouthwash, shower cap, shoe mitt, even a sewing kit – why isn’t there any air freshener? I’ve never ever seen this.
Only once have I ever even seen a travel-size container of air freshener, but at least I know it exists. So why haven’t the hotels – or the air freshener companies – jumped on this?
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
