Molecular Gastronomy by Hervé This

Author:Hervé This
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: CKB030000, Cooking/Essays, CKB023000, Cooking/Methods/General
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2005-12-27T16:00:00+00:00

Deep-Frying Considered

How should French fries be cooked? On this point cooks are apt to disagree, for each chef has his or her own method. One needs to ask what one is looking for in a plate of French fries and then rationally to examine which procedures allow this expectation to be satisfied.

Few connoisseurs will quarrel with the opinion that good French fries must be tender at the center, with minimal greasiness, and that they should be crispy without being overly brown. To achieve this result we must recognize that deep-frying involves a diffusion of heat from the outside inward, with two principal consequences: the formation of the crust and the cooking of the interior.

Potatoes are composed of cells that contain mostly water and starch granules. When the heat reaches the center of the fries by conduction, some cells are dissociated as the starch granules release their long molecules into the heated cellular water. With the complete evaporation of this water a crust is produced on the surface of the fries.

If one cooks a potato stick into which a thermocouple has been inserted (a more rapid and more reliable way of measuring temperature than with a thermometer), one finds that the interior heats up very slowly: Even when the temperature of the oil is 180°C (356°F), the temperature in the center reaches 85°C (185°F) only after several minutes, for the potato is thermically inert. In other words, if the oil is too hot in the first round of frying, the surface will burn before the inside is cooked.

Conversely, the oil must not be too cold to begin with, for then the crust will be slow to form and the fries will soak up oil. In practice, seven minutes of cooking at a temperature of 180°C (356°F) yields good results for fries measuring 12 millimeters (about half an inch) thick. A second round of cooking in oil heated to a slightly higher temperature, 200°c (392°F), produces perfect fries; remove them from the oil when they have turned just the right golden brown color.

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