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| a Microwave French Fries Maker, |
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| and something from the late '80s called MicroCrisp. |
This was going to make my entire Saturday. I smell Science Fair!
The french fry maker looked incredibly fussy. In the first place it required the user to cut and load potatoes that were no more than 1/2" on a side. But here's the magic part: another neighbor lady happened to have a french-fry cutter thingie that cut potatoes into 1/2" sticks. So now I had to do it. No backing out.
French fry cutting device
Immediately I was captivated by the copy on the back of the french fries maker box:
"Everyone loves french fries but who don't need fat and grease." Just begging for a question mark: "...but who don't need fat & grease? I know I do."
Then the fun began. Step 1: Wash & scrub potatoes and load up the entire tray. This took a surprisingly long time, about 30 minutes, but thank God for that cutter thingie.
Step 2: Microwave for the 18 minutes or so directed on the box. Check. Repeat. Check. Repeat. Arbitrarily decide they're done.
Step 3: Put ketchup & BBQ sauce in the handy-dandy serving compartments in the middle of the tray, walk out into the street, and offer them to neighbors in great excitement. Neighbors make various faces. Some try and others politely decline. The general consensus is that they taste absolutely nothing like french fries. More like the inside of a baked potato with no salt or butter, only with less flavor.
Step 4: Neighbor lady who gave me the cutter thingie suggests perhaps they'd be a bit crisper if I cooked them longer. Aha! Time to break out the MicroCrisp microwave browning paper! Wrap entire ensemble in MicroCrisp, tape it down, and cook another 18 minutes or so.
Step 5: Peel back MicroCrisp to reveal browned, inedible former potato sticks. And melted french fries maker.
4 comments:
America's test kitchen has a fantastic recipe for french fries, but they are done the traditional way (hint, it doesn't involve a microwave and does involve lots of oil). It's specifically for yukon gold potatoes. I have only had them at a friend's house, since I am unwilling to cook using that much oil :).
Pete
Microwave french fries eh? Now I am a big fan of imprecision in certain recipes and this is a procedure that cries out in full voice for such an approach. So:
1. cut up a bunch of Idahos however you please (a certain degree of uniformity is a plus here)
2. throw them in a plastic bag with some oil and salt
3. shake them all up until well-coated
4. dump the lot into an 8" square pyrex baking dish and cover it with a paper towel.
5. microwave until you start to smell potatoes cooking
6. press stop; take the baking dish out and shake it up
7. go to 5 and loop 5 and 6 until potatoes are to your liking.
Depending on the power of your microwave this may take longer than you would have believed possible.
Ralph
Both good thoughts - thank you, Ralph & Pete. I have another recipe for "French Bakes" out of the Laurel's Kitchen cookbook that's quite tasty too. My goal here was to take this dubious TV-proven technology and push it to (or perhaps past) its logical limit.
That "French Bakes" recipe is adapted here: http://fruitguys.com/almanac/2011/05/25/french-bakes-like-fries-but-not-fried
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