Belgian Fries aka French Fries

[jeff]

After eating good fries, it really is hard to go back to lesser quality fries.

Baking Potatoes
Salt
Peanut oil (or oil of choice) for frying
salt
vinegar (optional)

Start off by peeling the potatoes, or if you want the skin leave just make sure you clean them well.

Cut the potatoes into 1/2" by 1/2" fries. then place them in a container of water, I like to rinse some of the starch away. Once they're cut, place the container in the fridge for at least 1 hour, I try to leave mine over night.
Dump out the water and place the potatoes on a towel to try to remove a good bit of the water. you'll notice that the fries are now nice and stiff.

Bring a pot of oil or a deep fryer up to 280o and blanch the fries for 6-8 minutes, you're trying to make them soft, yet firm enough to still hold together.

Remove the fries from the fryer and set aside, turn the fryer up to 375o and place the fries back into the hot oil for 2-3 minutes or till they have a nice golden color.

Just make sure you do not over crowd the pan/fryer. The fries will just stick together and fall apart when you try to remove them.

give them a nice sprinkle of salt and if you like pour some vinegar on top.

If cooked right the potatoes should be very sweet.

[jeff]

...

[jeff]

I didn't get into the details of this in the post, since most people call fries, French fries, thankfully someone wrote up a nice little background on fries and has saved me the trouble of doing it myself. =)

This is my NATIONAL DISH and every person in the world rapes it by calling it FRENCH fries

Now let me tell you something, french fries is a potato cut in 4, in lenght, and baked in oil ONCE until they're actually not ready yet. Preferably served with vegetables and some overbaked filthy piece of deer. it tastes like water, fat, mashed potatos and disgust. These are FRENCH fries

Now if you cut the parts as small as on the picture or smaller, bake them twice in oil until they're nice yellow-brown, don't bake too many at once and then you have BELGIAN fries

(preferably add salt and mayonaise or ketchup or some pepper-cream sauce and a steak that's 2 fingers thick, or goulash). These taste crunchy and tasteful. Serve them in a pointy bag.

So in respect of 100000's of Belgian fries karts and the entire small population of Belgium who's mighty proud of their REAL fries and mad at the french for blatantly stealing it, please call them BELGIAN FRIES. Thank you