Triple Cooked Fries Recipe · i am a food blog (2024)

FAQs

What is triple cooked fries? ›

Blumenthal began work on the recipe in 1993, and eventually developed the three-stage cooking process. The chips are first simmered, then cooled and drained using a sous-vide technique or by freezing; deep fried at 130 °C (266 °F) and cooled again; and finally deep-fried again at 180 °C (356 °F).

Who can resist a plate of golden, crisp, freshly cooked chips? Cooking them three times at different temperatures is the way to perfection: it's not difficult and is totally worth it!

To get them to the chip stage, we follow a method pioneered by Heston Blumenthal which often crops up on menus now as triple-cooked chips. The three cooks in the name are boil, first fry and second fry.

The origin story

Despite its name and popularity, the French fries are not French. The origins can be found in Belgium, where historians claim potatoes were being fried in the late-1600s. According to Belgian lore, poor villagers living in Meuse Valley would often ate small fried fish they caught in the river.

When oil is heated, it starts to break down. And oil that has slightly broken down actually produces crispier french fries than fresh oil. It has to do with how effectively the oil molecules bond with the food and fresher oil doesn't bond as well.

Crispy potatoes fried in 100% canola oil and sprinkled with our house seasoning blend.

Fry in batches, overcrowding means the chips do not cook evenly. Ensuring the steam is removed and the chips are dried out after the first stage is key to crispness.

Potato chips from brands known for excessive salt, saturated fats, and artificial additives tend to be less healthy. Examples include Lay's, Pringles, and Ruffles. Opting for baked or kettle-cooked chips and checking nutritional labels can help make a healthier choice.

Decant the chips into the air fryer and cook at 140 degrees for 15 minutes, shaking the cooking basket every 5 minutes. After 15 minutes, set the air fryer to 170°C for 10 minutes, cook and shake the basket every five minutes.

Why are my homemade chips not crispy? It's likely that too many chips were cooked at once (a crowded pan is never a good thing) and doing so means the temperature of the oil decreases, resulting in soggy, greasy chips.

What were fries first called? ›

According to linguist Stuart Berg Flexner, they were known formally as French fried potatoes until the late 1920s. The name was subsequently shortened, first to French frieds, then French fries, and finally, in the 60s, just plain fries, as in the famous fast-food query, “You want fries with that?”

It is believed that Belgians were the first to begin the process of frying strips of potatoes, at some time between the late 17th and early 18th century. Legend has it that the poor villagers of Meuse subsisted on a diet of fish caught in the local river, which they would then fry before eating.

It must not only be cooked in beef white, but also go through two successive baths to be heavenly crispy: the first to blanch it and the second to cook it. This double cooking is crucial, since it is the original Belgian technique, which gives good golden and crispy fries.

In the UK, the name chips are a separate item to french fries; with chips being more thickly cut than french fries, they can be cooked once or multiple times at different temperatures. From 1813 on, recipes for deep-fried cut potatoes occur in popular cookbooks.

Only in America, they are called “french fries”. In France and Belgium, they are simply "pommes frites" (“fried potatoes”).

Triple-cooked chips, as the name suggests, require cooking three separate times. First, your potatoes have to be peeled and cut into chip-like shapes. Then they have to be placed in a saucepan full of cold water and boiled for 20 minutes. Once that's done, they need to be put on a cooling rack.

The first frying gives the potatoes their crispy outer shell (then the rest of the frying is done at the restaurant). This is also why you may see some people claim that McDonald's fries have more than 10 ingredients — because the potatoes are double-fried so the vegetable oil ingredients may be listed twice.

Theory #1: "The first fry gets the outside to create a water tight barrier. That way, when you fry them the second time, they stay moist." Or, Theory #2: "The first fry cooks them through to the center—if you skipped that step, your fries would brown on the outside, but still be raw in the middle."

Double-Fried French Fries.