I bought a bag of potatoes. The intention was to boil and mash them, and make shepherd’s pie. But then I had mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving.

So I did homemade french fries instead. And here’s how it went down.

Recon

The only “real” home deep fryer I’ve ever encountered was an intimidating affair comprised of thick stainless steel and heavy plastic.

The primary function of it simple: It completely contains the volatile grease as the food is lowered into it.

As chopped and washed potatoes descend into 150+ degree oil, all the surface water boils very very quickly. Beneath the surface, this causes the oil to go psycho and splatter all over the place. At 150 degrees, this isn’t simply messy, it’s hazardous.

It was this functionality that would need to be replicated.

Prep

I purchased three key components at the local Superdollar: a metal strainer (right), a splatter guard (above), and a 500mL bottle of sunflower oil.

The strainer is designed to sit on top of a standard 3- or 8-quart pot, presumably for use as a steamer. Well, my needs were precisely the opposite: I wanted it to fit snugly inside my 8-quart pot, and slide down to the bottom. So modification #1 was bending up the handle and lip of the strainer. Perfect fit.

Now I’d be able to safely “hover” the goods inside the pot, then lower them down using the (now) vertical handle.

The second change involved the splatter guard. I wanted to be have the pot top completely covered when the potatoes went in. But this required modification #2, that the splatter guard have a slit cut in it for the handle of the strainer.

Anyhow, time to chop some potatoes.

First Batch

I dumped all 500mL of oil into my pot, and put it on the maximum stovetop temperature. It sputtered and crackled ominously.

I put about two potatoes worth of fries into the strainer, and fed the handle of it up through the hole in the splatter guard. It’s difficult to describe the exact process, so I’ll simply post another image:

Because the strainer’s handle came to a narrow neck (slightly different from the one pictured at the top of the article), I was able to actually rotate it while holding the splatter guard in place over the pot.

The way I’ve got the second pot there allows the dangerous one to stay covered through pretty much the entire operation.

When they first went in, there was a plume of steam and a lot of racket from inside the pot. This quickly subsided into the pleasant rolling boil indicative of internal moisture steaming the food.

Results

I didn’t use a timer, and went entirely on visual inspection. It was fairly obvious how they were doing in terms of brown-ness level. And I had raised them a few times to shake about. (This was perhaps an unnecessary step, but it felt like I was “stirring” it…)

The removal procedure was the reverse of the submersion one: raise the sieve; wait for the activity in the oil to subside; gingerly raise the splatter guard enough to rotate the sieve into the second pot; scoop out the fries.

I dumped them in my metal baking pan and threw on some salt while they cooled.

The Meal

I had a couple strips of store-brand breaded fish in the toaster oven while all this was going on.

In all, I’d cooked six smallish potatoes, minus some wierd thin bits that would’ve just burnt up and been gross. It was three batches, enough that I felt quite pleasantly full afterward.

Conclusions & Observations

• This meal was really delicious.
• The kitchen smelled a little funny for a couple hours afterward.
• The entire time spent was about 40 minutes
• Two pots, a sieve, a splatter guard, and a baking pan… that’s a lot of cleanup for a single meal. (Even moreso than pizza, which makes several meals)

I expect I’ll be trying this again sometime.

Mike

← Earlier Later → Posted at 8:08 pm to Food.