Professional Recipes Blog

A friend of mine asked me for some advice for making french fries as every time she tries to make them in her fry daddy, they come out soggy and do not crisp up no matter how long she cooks them. I gave her some advice on making french fries from fresh potatoes and decided to share them.

Making the Perfect French Fry:

1. Use Russet potatoes as these make the best fries in my opinion. Russet Nugget potatoes also make excellent fries. The Russet variety has less moisture and will crisp faster.
2. The first step is to thoroughly scrub the potatoes to remove any dirt and deposits. This should be common knowledge for any dish when using potatoes.
3. Peel the potatoes. Some people like to leave a little skin on, but I recommend taking off the skin as the oil does not penetrate well. This is more of a personal preference though.
4. Soak the potatoes overnight in water. This will remove the the starch from the potatoes, allowing them to cook faster and makes them crispier.
5. Cut the potatoes lengthwise about a half an inch in thickness to make a steak fry cut. Cut thinner if you want the typical Shoe String french fry, but be careful how long you cook them. Most importantly, make sure to keep your cuts even so that all of your french fries cook evenly.
6. Pre-heat the oil in a deep pan or a deep fryer (if you have one) to 325° F and use a thermometer to make sure the temperature reaches this point. This is the most important step – if the oil is not hot enough, the water cannot escape from the potatoes and will not crisp up, leaving them soggy.
7. Some time before serving, blanch in oil at 325° F until slightly firm. Allow the potatoes to drain and dry and keep them in the fridge.
8. When ready to cook, drop in oil at 325° F until golden brown. Do not overload the pan or fry basket!

You might be wondering what the best kind of oil to use for deep frying and this can be more of a personal choice due to taste but here are my suggestions:

• For the highest heat and best flavor, use Peanut Oil or Grapeseed Oil (expensive).
• Soybean Oil also will provide a lot of heat, but can add a different flavor.
• Canola Oil will fry well, but it leaves a distinctive taste that some do not like. It is the healthiest type of oil to use however, so if you are going for healthier french fries, use Canola, but try it with a small batch first to make sure you like the taste.
• Vegetable Oil and Corn Oil are fine to use, but has a lower smoke point than Peanut Oil and might make your fries come out browner than you’d like.
• Whatever oil you use, do not use Olive Oil!
• Make sure to change your oil often if you use a deep fryer. Dirty oil will result in darker fries and more of a burnt flavor.

I hope these tips help you make the best possible French Fries! Enjoy!

Here are some more tips I found on cooking temperatures, times and potato facts: French Fry Cooking Guide for Potatoes

Recently for Easter dinner, I made a batch of Hollandaise sauce from scratch to go with the blanched asparagus that was one of the surprises I had planned for my friends and family. I haven’t made it at home or professionally in quite some time but the process came back to me easily and despite forgetting that I had no lemon juice in the house (horrors!), it came out pretty nicely after sending my daughter to the corner market!

Making Hollandaise Sauce with egg yolks and a whisk.

It does take a little work to make correctly and to be quite honest, the powdered/packaged variety is a good substitute for most home cooks, but nothing beats freshly made hollandaise.

Check out this article on making hollandaise from scratch: How to Make Hollandaise Sauce!

Ever wonder how people to host a fine dinner party and really impress your guests? The art of hosting a fine dinner party is simpler than you think, but there are some interesting ideas and subtleties that you may not have thought of. There are certain do’s and don’ts that you should pay attention to to help the night go off without a hitch.

Check out our article to the Art of Hosting a Fine Dinner Party for great tips and ideas for your next swanky affair.

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Art of Hosting a Fine Dinner Party

Hey everyone,

There’s a new featured recipe this month: Spinach Salad with Grilled Spiced Chicken, part of our theme of springtime recipes. More to come as spring rolls around, stop back for more spring recipes. If you’ve got a good one, send it in, and we’ll put it up on the site.

Or leave a comment.

Here’s another springtime recipe that we just put up: Asparagus and Tomato Salad

Enjoy!

There are many people who enjoy cooking and working with food. From resourceful parents who can whip up a meal in 30 minutes with whatever happens to be in the fridge, to the person who simply likes to dabble with different combination’s of food and create new dishes. Many of these people are looking for new ideas to try or simply wish to improve their cooking skills to impress guests, friends and family, or impress their date with a fabulous meal.

The difference between the home cook and the gourmet chef really comes down to knowledge and experience and oftentimes practice makes perfect (especially when it comes to food). How many times have you or someone you know attempted to make a dish only to have it taste different than what you expected or not look the way you expected or simply be over or undercooked? It happens to even the best of gourmet chefs from time to time. Even the pros (you just don’t see their mistakes or they know how to fix a mistake quickly).

So how does the average person learn to cook like a gourmet?

1. Be open to learning new things: Try something new and creative that you haven’t tried before. Spend some time learning about the techniques involved and just go and do it! The more you try different techniques, the more you learn.
2. Go ahead and watch the cooking shows: there are some truly resourceful chefs out there now using many different styles and with the variety of shows on the Food Network and other channels, there’s plenty to learn by observing.
3. Experimentation: experimentation is the only way we come up with recipes, so go ahead and spice up that bland sauce or try something new for your old favorite, just remember to start small and tweak as you go along and reserve some extra time in case you overdo it.

I’ve created a new “lens” on Squidoo entitled How to Cook Gourmet Style that will show different things to learn, offer tips and how to’s on cooking like a gourmet and more. You can find this lens and other lens that we create by going here:

How to Cook Gourmet Style: 10 Things Every Aspiring Gourmet Chefs Should Learn

I’ll be creating different lens on gourmet cooking as time goes on and I’ll be posting the different lens here, but all will be indexed on the Professional Recipes Squidoo Page so you can check out all of our lens. I’ll also be adding the lens to the Gourmet Cooking section on Professional Recipes also so that you can simply subscribe to our blog for updates, or bookmark the Gourmet Cooking section on Professional Recipes and check out our articles as well.

Enjoy!

I came across this great link about making girl scout cookies at home and I wanted to share it. The woman, Nicole, took the descriptions of the cookies and did her best to recreate them from this and her memory.

Homemade Girl Scout Cookies

This one is for making the Samoa’s cookies in particular but there are links to some of the other famous kinds (like Thin Mints!!!).

Enjoy!