If you want the best fries in the world, I'd highly recommend going to Belgium and getting them from any random frituur. The market is competitive, and anybody making lousy frites is unlikely to survive long.
They really are amazing: about 1cm square in cross section crunchy and crispy on the outside, but not overly so, light, fluffy, and the perfect balance of dry/moist inside. Never oily, always cooked fresh, and without exception, delicious. Though I will confess that I never got behind putting Mayo on top.
Anybody fooling around trying to replicate the original McDonalds recipe is shooting for the wrong target. Shoestring fries don't have the inside/outside texture contrast that makes for fry perfection.
Yes! So great, especially after a night of drinking Belgian beer. These Belgian frites are the best fries I've ever had (and I'm old enough to have had the original McDonald's fries.)
I love them topped with mayo but some places have a curry option that is even better!
Unfortunately, there are still a lot of shitty "frituurs" in Belgium that just fry bought frozen fries instead of the double fried freshly cut ones. Problem is, they get taken over by new owners very quickly (also the the barrier to entry the market is very low).
Although checking out the Google Reviews before a visit filtering by the Belgian names of the reviewers' is generally a good enough measure to go by.
For anyone in the UK looking for the same kind of mayonnaise that you get in Belgium, the closest I've found is this Polish one, available from Tesco or your local Polski sklep.
I think the main factor for those - and lots of other 'traditional' chip shops in both Belgium and the Netherlands - is the use of beef tallow instead of the generic 'frituurvet', which is mostly sunflower oil.
I mean don't get me wrong, at home we have a fryer and we make the odd load of homemade chips as well and they are the tits, but it's not the same.
We used to be able to get solid blocks of frying fat, probably was beef tallow or something like that, but it's all saturated fats (I believe) and bad for one's health and the like. According to the wisdom of the time anyway; I don't know, there may have been some lobby behind it (like how the wheat lobby made fat the boogeyman, and now someone is making the sugar / carb industry look bad).
There are a lot of vegetables, whole grains, and beans. You can make an excellent diet just from those.
Small amounts of any of those "bad" things is just fine. The problem is that many people have come to see them as the core of their diet, with vegetables as an unpleasant supplement to be minimized. Learn to cook vegetables well, and vast frontiers of interesting, delicious food open up.
Indian food is an excellent starting point[1], for either vegetarian or vegan eating. For that matter most authentic Asian cuisines are heavy on the vegetables, with small amounts of meat for flavor, which is also a very healthy way to eat (especially if you substitute whole grains for the white rice).
Plenty of other cultures have thrived on vegetable-based diets. It's really not that difficult. You just need to get over the notion that "food" consists of a meat main dish, a starch, and a desultory, obligatory vegetable side.
The problem, generally, is that people are accustomed to certain tastes, and often "healthy" options are overloaded with things to make them taste good. Mayo on salads, tenderstem broccoli roasted with olive oil, corn cobs on a BBQ, etc. - and Indian food, at least as it's known in the West, is no exception. Curries tend to use a lot of ghee or oil, and I'm fairly sure that people skimping on the fat at home is why home recipes (usually from health-conscious/vegetarian/vegan recipe sites) never quite hit the mark. Vegetables can taste great! ...So long as you smother them with the junk that actually gives it the flavor and texture you like.
Think of a dish composed mainly of "vegetables, whole grains, and beans" with minimal carbs and even more minimal butter/oil. What is the recipe? Then, consider if it tastes good - as good or better than similar recipes where more carbs and oil is used. I've been cooking a variety of meat and vegetarian dishes of various cuisines for years and I know of no such dish I'd want to eat with regularity. Brown rice, steamed chicken breast, and cauliflower just doesn't cut it for my palette, and I suspect the same for the majority of people who know how good a Sunday roast or pizza tastes.
There's nothing wrong with a dish containing a fair bit of fats. A lot of plans call for getting 30% of your calories from fat, which is about 12% of food by mass (since fats are about twice as calorie-dense as carbs or proteins).
Controlling total calories is important in weight loss, and that's a matter of portion control. A diet with a good proportion of fat will be fairly satisfying; you just need to limit the total amount of it. That'll still leave you a little hungry. There's no magic that makes calorie deficit pleasant. Tweaking the ratios can make it less unpleasant, a matter of personal taste.
It doesn't need to be junk. You don't even necesarily need a calorie deficit, if you're happy with your weight. There exist good vegetarian and vegan diets with appropriate amounts of fat and appropriate total calories, and they don't at all resemble "brown rice, steamed chicken breast, and cauliflower".
Carbs aren't "bad". You should be getting around 40% of your calories from carbs.
The problem is that some foods have nothing but carbs, and if you eat a lot of those, you'll either consume too many calories overall or fail to get necessary nutrients. So eat fewer white, starchy foods like potatoes, and more leafy foods, squashes, and other colorful foods.
Similarly, whole grains bring a lot of vitamins and fiber, while refined grains like white rice are reduced to just the starch. It's just fine that those whole grains also have carbs in them. That's actually a good thing, becuase you do need calories for energy. You just need more than that.
Lack of exercise is Most Bad. If healthy living were a decision tree, amount of exercise each day would absolutely be the root node.
Most people can get away with eating whatever they want with a modest amount of rigorous exercise each day. Granted, they still need to control their food intake and ensure they are getting required nutrients, but that's pretty straightforward.
Yeah, new research seems to show its the opposite... animal fats are extremely good for you, and its plant fats - specifically linoleic acid - that promote metabolic dysfunction.
I hope this one works out; I've been ignoring everyone and living off of almost entirely animal fats and carbs for ya know, my whole life.
I'm either gonna die in the next couple of decades (I'm in my thirties) or live forever. Also, maybe this is why my BMI is so low (I am very lean and always have been)? Who knows! Could be that, or it could be a thyroid condition!
No "best" fry exists just as there is no single most attractive piece of art. It's all personal taste, which is why the author is trying to replicate something.
As a Belgian, I was looking in horror at that recipe. Why would people put sugar on their fries?!
So I'm glad you like the Belgian fries. What I've always learned to be key is that we fry our cut potatoes twice: once at 140°C, wait for them to cool down, and once at 175-180°C. Then you add salt, that's it.
And the mayo: I don't think many people like it like that when they eat fries at home, but it's easy ¯\_(?)_/¯
As an European transplant I confirm that. And American sweets are absolutely loaded with sugar, it overwhelms all other flavors and tastes. My naive pet theory is that in order to cover up the use of lower quality ingredients or substitutes they’re flooded with sugar. That also creates an addictive effect so sales jump up
It's also cheap in the US (in the form of HFCS) and smashes that dopamine receptor with a fucking wrecking ball.
Europeans would absolutely eat sugar in the same volumes if it were as cheap there as it is in America. As with most of the cultural differences between the regions, a lot of it comes down to economics: if gas were cheap in Europe, they'd also drive big SUVs; if land were as cheap in Europe, they'd have McMansions; etc.
Sugar (in the form of sugar) is cheaper in Europe than sugar or HFCS in the USA.
£0.65/kg in Tesco in the UK, 7.5kr/kg ($1.20) in Føtex in Denmark, but $1.80/kg at Walmart. Corn syrup at Walmart is more expensive, $2 a pint, but presumably cheaper in bulk packaging. (Last time I was in the USA, I saw an entire freight train of tank cars full of HFCS.)
(You'll also note that plenty of rich Europeans prefer large "normal" cars, like Audis, BMWs, Mercedes etc, and a nice apartment in the middle of a city.)
Murica.
Everything has sugar in it. I have unfortunately bought Mozzarella cheese in it that had sugar added that I didn't realize until I ruined good pizza dough with it.
That's super reductionist. Balancing salty and umami with sweet is so common that you should be surprised that it took so long to realize that adding it directly to the fries makes sense.
BBQ sauce is full of sugar. Ketchup too. People dip their fries in ice cream. Chocolate dipped pretzels work on the same principle. As does candied bacon and apple grilled cheese. Your Thanksgiving Honeybaked Ham is glazed in a sweet sauce. Turkey and cranberry sauce are a match made in heaven. Bacon and maple syrup were practically made for each other.
> That's super reductionist... [list of American foods (or foods that aren't american but are extremely popular there, as in ketchup) with sugar added to it]
You didn't do much to dispell the idea that this is an American thing.
Maybe salted caramel pralines. But sour and sweet is a common flavour trope in much of the world. e.g. lemon + sugar e.g. in cannoli; tamarind and cane sugar in SE Asia and Mexican recipes; Chinotto.
Prosciutto e melone, brie en croute, fruit and cheese/cured meat in general, duck a l'orange, pad thai. Sweet + salty/savoury foods are definitely not uncommon throughout the world.
Sure, you can find this flavour combination anywhere, but I don't know of another country that uses sugar to the extent America does. I ordered a fried breakfast in an American hotel and they put icing sugar on the sausages! It's bizarre.
Did the breakfast come with pancakes or waffles? Maybe the sugar was intended for those but some missed. I don't doubt there are people who enjoy sugared sausages, but for a restaurant to sugar their sausages unasked is something I'd expect most Americans to find odd as well.
He's not incorrect about there being sugar in many things in the US, though. I've had to start reading labels a lot more after moving to the US, since some of the products I've used at home actually do have sugar added in the American version.
Some of the local foods in the US also have off the charts levels of sweetness, such as southern sweet tea and sweet potato casserole with marshmallows. Bread and pizzas also tend to be on the sweeter side in the US.
Those sauces are just different, though similarly named. The calories, sodium and fibre values are different, one contains cheese where the other doesn't.
Sugar is not uncommon in commercial pasta sauce, even in Canada.
There is something very weird with mayo from a Belgian "frituur". I love it, I usually order mine with mayo on top, wrap them with paper and let it soak in on the drive home. Makes the fries delicous. And I order an extra packet of mayo on the side because they usually don't put enough on top.
But, in any other situation if mayo is involved I'm grossed out to the point of puking. Even when I just smell the mayo (from the same brand) someone is putting on their plate of vegetables or whatever.
Yes, you remove them completely from the oil and let them rest a bit. Mostly the fries are baked in 'fat' rather than oil though. Besides this, the type of potato that is used is pretty important too, as its consistency will impact a great deal too. The potatoes we use at home are called 'bintjes', they are a bit 'flowery'.
Yes, when double frying you remove fries from the oil and allow moisture near the surface to evaporate so it becomes tacky. For oil any common oil works but saturated fats get fries crispier. Even oven roasted potatoes in ghee and can almost get a french fry crunch. Duck fat is next level. Obviously much slower than frying.
FWIW, they're brined in a solution containing sugar, it's not like there's sugar sprinkled on them. Very little of it makes it into the final product and in my experience brined fries aren't perceptibly sweet in an obvious way. It assists with browning and a crunchy exterior.
Some years ago a different “MacDonalds french fries” recipe was posted, I think it did the rounds on HN, and it was much more like the recipe you describe: fried twice and cooled between, no sugar, add salt.
There are some other variations, like blanching the potatoes with vinegar, or freezing the potatoes overnight between frying. The idea is to make them crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
I like how people will be snobby about everything. Belgian-style French fries can be good, but that doesn't mean that they're better than the rest, it's a matter of taste. I personally prefer McDonalds-style fries which are smaller and more homogeneous. And no I'm not ashamed of that, it's fried potatoes, not some kind of fancy technical delicacy.
There's no wrong target. Some people enjoy deep-dish pizza. It kinda baffles me but I wouldn't be telling them that they're "shooting for the wrong target" if they tried to replicate this particular recipe because that's what they like.
Sorry, I didn't think my claim that a particular style of French fry is best required a disclaimer that it was a statement of opinion and not objective fact :-)
I do think that entirely too few people in the US have ever tried anything other than fries of smaller cross section and that properly cooked Belgian style fries would be a revelation for a great number of people over here.
Besides, the whole premise of TFA is based on snobbery and a bit of nostalgia. They're recreating the old McDonalds fries, not the new because of the perceived superiority of the old ones, after all.
I only argue that if you're going to be a snob, you should at least be a well-informed snob, though perhaps my intended humor came across poorly over the internet.
Imagine reading an article written by somebody who has never tried deep dish pizza (or any other kind) writing about their quest to replicate an old Dominos crust recipe.
>I do think that entirely too few people in the US have ever tried anything other than fries of smaller cross section
Unless the American eats only at fast food restaurants (which is probably a decent sized group), then I can't imagine that to be true. There are fries with many difference cross section sizes even in a regular grocery freezer aisle.
And many restaurants frequently serve fries ranging from skinny shoestring to full on "potato logs" that are easily an inch diameter cross section.
Oh American restaurants have tried everything - potato wedges, cottage fries, waffle fries, sweet potato fries, steak cut, truffle, garlic, cheese, chili, curly, oven baked, even poutine. Sometimes more than one kind at the same restaurant.
That's the thing about America. Somebody from every country is here, making their traditional foods or riffing on them with new ingredients and processes. I can go downtown and try Ethiopian, two British pubs, two Vietnamese, French (high and low styles), three Indian places, 4 Thai, 6 kinds of Mexican. All run by folks from those places.
The problem isn’t restaurants, the problem is the American preference for cheap, bland, calorie dense food. With such a wide range of cultures and individual preferences the most widely acceptable option ends up being fairly mediocre.
Plenty of exceptions exist, but tend to be very local.
Hi, I see you just arrived from 1980. Welcome to our century! Here in our time, Americans eat all kinds of ethnic foods and some people wear face masks. Thai food is currently in vogue, we now have a spicy sauce called Sriracha (born in the USA), and you can get jalapeño poppers at fast food joints. Oh, and the food trucks! The President made a campaign promise to have a taco truck on every corner!
[2]: I think the hope that we'd have a taco truck on every corner was probably more unifying than anything else that's happened or been done by anyone in the US since.
gosh, even around 1980, I remember my risk-averse parents getting chinese and indian food in nowhereville, and demon-core
hot buffalo wings were popular.
You say that, yet I will take that as evidence supporting my argument. Chinese food served in US restaurants has little in common with actual Chinese food, it’s common for them to have completely different menus for people who actually speak Chinese with a different set of dishes. Indian food went through a similar transition, where there is a distinctly American take generally served.
PS: Hot isn’t a complex flavor it’s exactly what’s left over after you extract the complexity from many ethnic dishes.
Agreed on the second menus. While eating inside my local Chinese place a few years back I saw an amazing dish being eating by another patron and was given the scoop. It was literally a second menu, no photos, all Chinese. Everything I've tried has been great but it's definitely different food from the main menu.
Americans eat ethnic foods in the same way local Chinese restaurants serve authentic Chinese cuisine, or pizza is an authentic ethnic Italian dish.
American Thai food as generally consumed is rapidly becoming it’s own thing that’s somewhat related to actual Thai food. Like California rolls or hotdogs what’s left over after the free market has it’s say is a very different thing.
I mean, that's what happens as a cuisine gets passed down from generation to generation: it evolves. Cuisine and language are similar in that respect. The sort of English spoken in the US is no less "real" than the sort of English spoken in England; why would the Chinese food made and sold by the descendants of Chinese immigrants in the US be any less "real" than the Chinese food made and sold in China? They both evolved from the same point, and simply diverged and evolved.
And that's what we're seeing now with Thai food. As the generations get further and further removed from the original immigrants, the cuisine continues to evolve in its own direction. And why shouldn't it?
It's also worth remembering that restaurants are not always (and in fact, rarely are) representative of the actual local cuisines. There's still heavy emphasis on the good ol' home cooked meal (as hard as frozen food chains might try to supplant home cooking), and that's where you see both the preservation of tradition and the proliferation of experimentation, marketability and profit be damned. Indeed, looking at these home cooked meals, it becomes readily evident that the oft-denigrated Chinese holes-in-the-wall and small town pizzerias are far closer to authenticity than the fancy gastropubs and fusion restaurants of snobbish preference; authentic cuisine puts form over function, and heartiness over presentation. Authenticity comes from humility and self-awareness; it doesn't need to try to impress anyone's palate.
It’s the speed of change that suggests it’s more than just the natural evolution of food. I am not saying it’s a purely negative effect, just describing what’s happens when a new ethnic food gets introduced to the American pallet.
I stand by my original point that you can’t call something authentic X after you significantly later what it is. Small town pizzerias and snobbish restaurants are both very distinct from classic Italian food.
That said, if you go to Italy today they very much cater to tourists expecting food their familiar with. Further, while the tomato was only imported in the 16th century, that’s plenty far back to confuse the issue.
Yeah the guy we know at our favorite Indian place says "You know this is Restaurant Indian Food. Some time ask me, and I'll have Mom make you the stuff we eat at home!"
The "plenty of exceptions" part is the key! There are truly a lot of exceptions, and you can subsist eating entirely local, authentic, interesting, and healthy food in any mid-sized American city if you make it a priority.
I do think that entirely too few people in the US have ever tried anything other than fries of smaller cross section and that properly cooked Belgian style fries would be a revelation for a great number of people over here.
Everything tastes better when you're on vacation. Less stress. Heightened senses It's science.
The best fries I ever had (as an American who has eaten fast food since the 70s, including the legendary McDonalds fries) were served in Switzerland. The guy quickly sliced up the potato and prepared the fries in some sort of wok with some sort of oily substance that I always assumed was clarified butter, but may very well have been beef tallow or some other concoction.
> Shoestring fries don't have the inside/outside texture contrast that makes for fry perfection.
They absolutely do have the contrast, where are you getting your shoestring fries?! :P
The only thing is, shoestring fries need to be eaten within ~10 minutes of being fried, before they dry out. Maybe you let yours sit around too long, or get them from somewhere that does.
Thicker fries are too close to baked potatoes for me. :( I want golden cripsy goodness!
Thankfully there are 100 types of fries because people like 100 types of things. :)
Sadly I don't have the time currently to read the entire article, but I did look at the intro and the recipe. I think if the author is looking for the proper cronchy non-floppy texture, the double fry is more important than the beef tallow. What the author may not realize is that part of the benefit of the commercial frozen frys is that they generally come par-fried before they were frozen
Great point, I've seen before in youtube videos how much of a difference makes.
The author's recipe does suggest doing exactly that:
Beef Tallow French Fries
Adapted From “McMenu: Do-It-Yourself McDonald’s Restaurant Recipes”
Yields two medium-sized orders of fries.
2 large russet potatoes
¼ cup white sugar
2 tablespoons white corn syrup (Karo)
1–2 cups hot water
6 cups Crisco shortening
¼ cup beef tallow
Salt to taste
1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into shoestrings. They should be about ¼ inch x ¼ inch in thickness and about 4 inches to 6 inches long.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the sugar, corn syrup, and hot water. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Place the potatoes into the bowl of the sugar-water and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. While they’re soaking, pack the shortening into a deep-fryer. If you don’t have a deep-fryer, any sauce pot or dutch oven will suffice as long as you have an appropriate thermometer. Heat on the highest setting until the shortening has liquefied and reads between 375° and 400° F.
4. Drain the potatoes then dump them into the fryer (be careful, it will be ferocious). Nudge them around to make sure they don’t stick to one another. After 1 to 1 ½ minutes, transfer the potatoes to a paper towel–lined plate. Let them cool 8 to 10 minutes in the refrigerator.
5. While they’re cooling, add the beef tallow to the hot shortening and bring temperature back to between 375° and 400° F.
6. Add the potatoes and deep-fry again for 5 to 7 minutes or until golden brown. Again, nudge lightly to keep them from becoming one mega-fry. Remove and place them in a large bowl, sprinkling generously with salt and tossing to mix the salt evenly. Serve hot and enjoy.
I'm interested that the recipe recommends two fry steps at the same temp. Most recipes I've seen suggest the first fry be at a lower temp, like a confit. I'm guessing it's because it would mean keeping another frier at a low temp that wouldn't be useful for anything else.
Might as well link to the original, instead of the google.com/amp link.
The AMP link is slower, adds tracking, gives Google just a wee bit more control over the internet, doesn't provide as much SEO credit, and hurts recognition of the "food.com" brand.
The McMenu PDF linked on the article, rants about warming drawers right off the bat.
Indeed I fully agree with the article, currently I find McDonald to be a really, really shitty burger, only reason to still buy it sometimes is because they are good at "service" (ie: they stay open when other restaurants are closed, aren't too expensive, and the ingredients quality is reasonable).
The fries is well, a whole another subject.
I did tried making fries at home using commercial frozen fries, and pork fat, and the result was really, really, really good, but it also make a huge mess in the kitchen, so my wife refuses to ever do it again, but pork fat is obviously much superior than vegetable oil for frying in general (not just deep frying).
A restaurant that have good (but not great) fries suggested cotton oil, but that one is very hard to find, only places I found selling it were selling it to restaurants, thus it only came packaged in huge tubs with 100 USD worth of oil, and that is obviously ridiculous in a home setting.
I keep a jar of bacon grease in the fridge for misc. pan frying (makes amazing hot dogs). I simply cannot believe it's never occurred to me to make french fries with it!
> I find McDonald to be a really, really shitty burger
They started serving quarter pounder burgers made-to-order a year or two ago, and if your local McD's does it properly (instead of breaking rules and making them in advance and letting them sit around), you'll get a burger that's medium on the inside, and incredibly juicy and flavorful.
It's not Shake Shack, but it's still miles better than any burger they ever sold in the past. Absolutely nothing shitty about it at all anymore. I was astonished -- never once in my life did I think I'd actually enjoy the beef in a McD's burger.
Hmm. You converted me. I'll give it a shot in the next month or so. See if McDonalds will hire you as a part-time marketing rep (if you aren't one already)
Where I live (Brazil) they use their normal patty for the quarter pounder... it is a completely useless sandwich to be honest, the quarter pounder is almost identical to the cheeseburger, except the cheeseburger is even smaller somehow. It is really sad.
The quarter-pounder here is nowhere near 1/4 of a pound. (seemly they use a 0.2 pound one instead. or 1/5 of a pound)
I actually paid attention last time I went, in more than one store, I ordered quarter pounder and kept watching the drawer, not only they used the drawer, but the burger that went into quarter pounder is same that went into all other products.
I lived in Brazil for years (years ago) and the McD's quarter pounders were certainly identical back then.
Maybe you have a "bad" McD's by you... but their regular hamburgers are much, much smaller in diameter (and thinner). A quarter pounder burger comes to the edge of the bun. If they used a regular burger, it would be so small it would be invisible when served, you wouldn't see it at all until biting in.
Legally, a quarter pounder is always 1/4 lb before cooking. It's always significantly less when served because of the water and fat it loses while cooking.
So if you think you're getting a 0.2 lb burger cooked, it's still a real quarter pounder. Their regular hamburger/cheeseburger is waaay less than 0.2 lb. If you want a serious amount of meat, that's what a double quarter pounder is for.
I guess then I live near a "bad" McD... the quarter pounder burger indeed is NOT visible until after you bite into the sandwich, it is nowhere near like the pictures.
I actually love the basic McDonald's hamburger as a snack. It's just in a much different category than a nice burger.
I also like to check out McDonald's in different countries. Sometimes in Japan you can get an Idaho burger, which has a hashbrown patty. And sometimes they have an "adult creampie" dessert (yikes). Indian McDonald's has masala chicken and veggie burgers, and Israeli McDonald's has $15 giant gourmet burgers.
For anyone that gets a chance to visit India, the McMaharaja is genuinely worth a try. I found it quite far from anything you could easily find in North American fast food.
I remember another blog, by a different author, who was also a fairly accomplished chef. They had to do some sort of "backdoor deal" with a McD's employee, to get a bag of "pre-fried" chips, which they then examined, to find that they arrive at the franchise, "pre-cooked," to a certain extent. It read like a Sherlock Holmes mystery.
Their fries, these days, are a shadow of the greasy pleasure sticks of olden days.
Same with their Apple pies. Anyone remember their originals, that were basically balls of fusion fire, cooked in lard, and came with a defibrillator?
most fries (and some other fried things) are fried twice. often they are fried for awhile at a (relatively) low temperature and then flash fried again before service at a high temperature. It drives more moisture out and allows you to serve them freshly fried quickly after they are ordered.
The process is called parfrying and is really common for a lot of stuff. It's more efficient to do it higher up on the chain because the restaurants don't need more prep work and it can all be done at once.
Instant noodles are also parfried, which is how they cook so quickly.
> Same with their Apple pies. Anyone remember their originals, that were basically balls of fusion fire, cooked in lard, and came with a defibrillator?
There's a quote from one of the most significant works of Polish literature (Dziady - Forefathers' Eve), which goes more or less like this(source: Wikipedia - doesn't appear to be taken from the official translation):
Our nation is like lava. On the top it is hard and hideous, but its internal fire cannot be extinguished even in one hundred years of coldness. So let's spit on the crust and go down, to the profundity!
Replace "nation" with "apple pie" and it makes for an accurate description.
Popeye's sells a pretty close analog of Mcdonald's old fried pies.
And some international locations of McDonald's also still sell their pies fried.
As to the fries- they pretty much have to be pre-cooked, since the potatoes are pureed and "fries" are reformed through a play-doh style extrusion. Pre-cooking keeps them from falling back apart.
I don't believe that McDonald's fries are made from ground potato product. Based on your comment I did some reading, and didn't find any references supporting your claim, but did find some recent articles that describe McDonald's using high speed water to force potatoes through a cutting device [1].
The fact that the fries are pre-cooked at the factory isn't a huge secret. The real footwork there is just getting your hands on the bulk ingredient which isn't meant for public sale.
Their original awesome ones had been replaced with ones that looked like and tasted like cardboard for years... but at least for the past couple years they've had a new recipe that's seriously delicious. It's not the old deep-fried heart attack, but it's a light fluffy pastry and the inside actually tastes like it's made of real apples!
The McDonald's chocolate chip cookies are pretty good, too. About eight years ago I worked next door to a McDonald's and it was nice to take a stretch and walk over there to pick up three for a dollar. Eat one at work, one on the train home, and one for the wife.
Original McDonald’s fries and New Coke are two 80s things I would try if they were available today. Even if the companies brought it back for a limited time I’m sure there would be enough interest.
I just checked and New Coke was available as part of a Stranger Things campaign, only in limited cities though.
There is not much difference between 'New Coke' and 'Coca-Cola Classic' to be honest. Both were moves to hide the fact that Coke was switching from cane sugar to HFCS. After the New Coke debacle the switch back to 'Classic' was the old formula but with HFCS. If you want a taste of what Coke used to be like you want to find Mexican Coke bottles, that is as close as you will get.
You can also find US-market Coca-Cola sweetened with sugar at most Walmarts. It costs a bit less than the Mexican Coke. There's a section in the soda aisle that has a variety of "classic" and new soft drinks that don't have HFCS.
Actually, you can get Coca-Cola with cane sugar anywhere in the States every year from late March to mid April.
HFCS is not "Kosher for Passover", so as soon as the Passover season rolls around, you can get the original recipe as long as the bottling plant is one that carries a supervision. I know aficionados that stock up every year.
I would hope the ingredients on the label would be accurate.
The reason HFCS took off in the U.S. is the high tariffs applied to sugar imports to protect the domestic sugar manufacturers. Without that market distortion in place, sugar is probably cheaper than HFCS.
I recommend watching the video, the real meat of it starts at about 6:20. The creator works for Vox and is generally considered pretty reputable. Basically they did a study and found Mexican Coke, despite the label, is made with HFCS.
I'm not surprised. I remember hearing NAFTA really screwed with the price of corn and tortillas for Mexicans around 2007. Distorting corn and corn syrup prices is kind of obvious. The surprising part is incorrect labeling and poor enforcement. I imagine Kosher Coke is legit?
Corn subsidies are another market distortion that keep sugar more expensive than HFCS.
Especially subsidies to US "Grade C" Corn serve to keep a lot of corn derivatives incredibly cheap (HFCS, corn ethanol, fatty cattle feed stock filler, etc), because "Grade C" (aka "US Standard Corn") isn't typically considered useful for much more than its derivatives but there is a massive trade in it because of how cheap that corn is.
The Coke execs from the time have done interviews. When presented with the sugar -> HFCS theory they responded with "we weren't that smart". I tend to believe them.
They switched because of the "Pepsi challenge". Pepsi beat coke at taste test booths.
New Coke was Diet Coke with HFCS instead of aspartame. New Coke beat both Pepsi and Old Coke at taste test booths.
Turns out it was because when you're just doing a shot of cola people pick the sweeter one. When there's a whole can tastes differ.
Too me it is ironic that the one thing that made McDonald’s iconic is their fries and today the one thing that I truly hate about McDonald’s is their fries. So inconsistent. Sometimes hot and crispy other times limp and cold. Sometimes too much salt other times bland. I look forward to trying this recipe.
The anger was over the fact that McD promised they had changed to vegetable fat for frying but didn't mention that they still added a touch of the old beef tallow for flavor.
The best fries I ever had were cooked in beef tallow in a small burger joint in London somewhere around here about 10 years ago, https://goo.gl/maps/jzoMt5neajiRpGUY8, the burger was good but the fries were great.
You can't beat the craveability[0] of current Mc Donald's french fries.
From Wordpanda:
adjective. craveability (especially of a food) having qualities that engender an intense desire for more: All too often, salt, sugar, fat, and “crunch” make a food craveable
FYI: Beef tallow leaves a hearty, waxy film all over everything which is difficult to get off of most surfaces and impossible to get out of your furniture.
The taste is incredible and there's really nothing like it, but home cooks looking to experiment would be well advised to do so outside.
Just as long as you're aware of the implications of using vegetable oil for your french fries. This lecture on vegetable oils is one of the most memorable lectures I've ever watched: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2UnOryQiIY
I worked at McDonald's in the 80s when they switched over to vegetable oil.
The original beef tallow fryer oil was called Formula 47. It came in boxes as it was solid at room temperature; one box would basically fill an empty fryer.
Whole potatoes were not processed in store at that time. The fries came already cut and frozen, and were cooked frozen. As such, nobody at the store really knew the recipe. You filled a basket with frozen fries, dropped it into the fryer, hit a timer button, and in about 3 or 4 minutes they were done. They were dumped into a holding station and salted with ordinary table salt. They could sit in the holding station for up to 10 minutes before they were supposed to be thrown away.
I did watch a training video about how they were produced, which involved (as I recall) selecting potatoes of a specific size and moisture content specification, cutting, rinsing, blanching, then flash-freezing.
Worked McDonald's as my first job at 15. I can tell you that McDonald's and Wendy's both have/had excellent fries but there were bad incentives for cooking them properly and having them fresh.
The fries need to be cooked for a specific time(well duh, but the sweet spot is less than a dozen seconds). They also cook better in small batches. The times are off for full baskets and perhaps they don't cook well like that at all; you want the fries to be "swimming" on the basket.
Problem is the same as every fast food restro; the employees get antsy and don't want to wait for them to cook all the way. Managers and employees alike think(or don't think TBH) the customer would rather have their meal 20s sooner with undercooked fries. Same reason sandwich shops pull the sandwich before it has been properly toasted.
When I was younger and frequented these places I used to ask them for "..fresh fries, cooked the full time. I don't mind waiting". Go inside, the drive-through has bad quality incentives(wait time).
[0] http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/19-mcdonalds-broke-my...
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