Place them in a large bowl and cover with cold water. Allow them to soak, 2 to 3 hours. (You can also stick them in the fridge and let them soak overnight.) When you're ready to make the fries, drain off the water and lay the potatoes on 2 baking sheets lined with paper towels.
First let's talk about why cut potatoes need to be immersed in water to begin with. The reason is to prevent the potatoes exposure to air, which causes dehydration, oxidation, and discoloration. Immersing cut potatoes will also help rinse off excess starch.
Give them a cold water bath: Once your potatoes are chopped, toss them into a large bowl. Then cover the potatoes completely with cold water and let them soak for at least 30 minutes (or up to overnight). This will help to rinse off the excess starch and help the potatoes crisp up beautifully in the oven.
Leave the potatoes in salt water for 15 to 30 minutes before frying. But if needed, you can also soak them for no more than 24 hours.
Soak the potato strips in water with a dash of apple cider vinegar. Soaking the potatoes draws starch to the exterior of the potato. This prevents fries from sticking together and helps them get crispy. Vinegar delays potatoes from turning brown and also speeds up the starch extraction.
Soaking potatoes in water helps remove excess starch. Excess starch can inhibit the potatoes from cooking evenly as well as creating a gummy or sticky texture on the outside of your potatoes. Cold water is used because hot water would react with the starch activating it, making it harder to separate from the potatoes.
Directions. Soak the potatoes in enough cold water to cover, stir in 2 tablespoons vinegar and place in the fridge for at least 1 hour and up to 4 hours. When you refrigerate the potatoes, the starch will turn to sugar which is a good contrast to the vinegar in this recipe.
Soaking potatoes in cold water helps get rid of the starch, which makes them crispier. The sugar in the brine prevents them from soaking up too much oil when fried, which also makes them crisp. What is this? Soak them for at least 2 hours, or as long as overnight.
Why use salt water for soaking potatoes? There's moisture naturally found in potatoes, and moisture is drawn to higher concentrations of salt. (This is a process called osmosis.) So, if you put the potatoes in a salt water bath, that will help draw out some of their moisture, resulting in crispier fries.
It is said that excess starch on the outside of the potato can cause potatoes to stick to one another, because of the gelatinization of the starch. Also, it is said that rinsing of some of those excess sugars will reduce the risk of your fries burning and turning black (because of the Maillard reaction).
For frying: Rinse after soaking to rid the potatoes of excess surface starch, then drain and dry well.
Can You Soak Potatoes for Too Long? If you cut the potatoes into small pieces and leave them overnight, they may start losing their structure and flavor. Because of that, keep also in mind the size of the potatoes, their age, and the time you will leave them to soak in water.
(If you decide to try soaking the raw potatoes anyway, they can be soaked in water in the refrigerator for several hours without any safety concerns. Potatoes can be soaked even overnight as long as they are in the refrigerator.)
Nuke them in the microwave:
So now, I toss the chopped potatoes in a bowl and microwave them for 2 or 3 minutes before frying them… that way, the potatoes are a little more tender and it doesn't take the insides as long to soften up.
Unless a battered fry, they are not adding in salt during the process. I recommend not salting the fries till they come out of the fryer and even then, waiting for an order before salting as the fries can turn limp prematurely if salted too soon.
A: The main reasons to cut the potatoes and pre-soak in water are: To allow the excess starches and sugars to be removed from the outer surface of the fry strips AND to keep the potatoes from browning prematurely from exposure to air.
They can soak longer, but you'll need to keep them in the fridge while they soak. Don't soak for longer than 3 hours.
The potato in the salt water shrinks because water moves from the potato into the more concentrated salt water. In contrast, water moves from the less concentrated distilled water into the potato causing it to expand.
They don't add the sugar directly, but bathe the fries in sugar water before frying, so it only gives a very light film. It make them this way at home. Bathing them in the sugar water not only gives them the sugar film, it also removes most of the surface starch so the fries don't clump together.
We stick to a gold standard that helps us ensure we deliver you a great tasting McDonald's fry. It starts with the right potatoes, which we cut exactly right, and then use a canola-blend oil with just the right amount of flavoring.
The type of potatoes makes a difference.
If you use Russets you definitely want to soak them in water before frying because they have a high starch content but they will be crispier overall. Peanut oil or any light vegetable oil is necessary to make the best fried potatoes with the crispy crust you're looking for.
03/5Why vinegar is added to boiling potatoes? This hack has been suggested by several home cooks and chefs and the reason behind it is that vinegar can help the potatoes retain their shape. Vinegar causes the potatoes to form a thin crust that further helps in retaining their shape.
The incoming water in the potato cells pushes on the cell walls and makes the cells bigger. As a result, the whole potato strip gets bigger. The opposite is the case in the higher concentrated salt solutions.
Some experts recommend adding vinegar to the oil to slow the breakdown of pectin (the polysaccharide that helps a potato keep its structure intact). Try as you might, though, industrial fryers will nearly always beat out whatever equipment you've got at home.
Soaking the potatoes after they're cut draws out some of the starch which is naturally present in potatoes. This will result in a crispier fry. A thirty minute soak in cold water does the trick but you may soak them longer if you want.