Why French Fries Always Taste Better At Michelin Restaurants

Hey, sack of potatoes. Why are restaurant French fries always better? Why is this a Michelin star French fry? Does it deserve a Michelin star? Wow. So I learned that my French fries are missing just one step from making them Michelin star French fries. I say Michelin star French fries because this was a technique made popular. I don't know if he came up with a technique, but he made it popular. And that was Heston Blumenthal, also known as a chef of the fat duck. And the reason why I'm cutting them like this is because that's how he cuts them, with a little apple core. I'm using a little chopstick to take them out. This is honestly my first time using an apple core. So he cuts them like this, drops them into the cold water so they don't oxidize, but also we're gonna cook them in this water. Now, this is a technique that I have not tried before. So I mentioned Heston Blumenthal of the fat duck, and my buddy actually made a YouTube video on this. His name is Chris Young. Chris Young actually even worked on these cookbooks known as the Modernist Cuisine Cookbooks, and they make a really nice decoration. And he was also the executive chef for the fat duck with Heston Blumenthal. So he was the one that did all of the recipe testing and writing for the books, Modernist Cuisine and the fat duck. And I also happened to have him in the same city as me. So I texted him, we met up, and I asked him about this French fry method. And he said, yeah, it's called the triple fry method. So my French fries are missing one crucial step. I'm gonna show you that step. Why do you need to start potatoes in cold water? So this is a question that I get quite often too, is why can't I just throw my potatoes into boiling water? It's pretty basic. If you toss into the boiling water, the outside's gonna cook before the inside, then you're gonna be left with some weird mealy potato piece of ----. So you wanna start it in cold water, bring it all up together, and they'll cook evenly. But for this particular method, I have my spider on standby. I'm going to bring them up, and I'm gonna cook them, I'd say, I don't know, 10 minutes or so, but I can't really put a time on it. I need to put a texture on it. I want them to be just about to fall apart. Now, the reason why I want these to fall apart is basically like, if you've seen my fried chicken videos, when I show you how to make fried chicken that is really crispy, I'll tell you to like squeeze the **** out of that chicken to create little cracks and crevices. Same thing with the potato. We're breaking it apart more. So we create like little cracks and crevices. So when you fry it, you have more texture. And that's what makes this a better French fry. So I've cooked these just until they start to fall apart. So this is gonna be the sweet spot. It's already starting to break apart. I've never tried this method, by the way. So this is all completely new to me. But from the looks of it, I think it's gonna be worth it. This is definitely one of the more time consuming French fry methods, I'd say. And that's probably one reason why this does make them a Michelin recipe. That's the difference with Michelin restaurants is a lot of detail, a lot of detail. There we go. So this is the first blanch to the triple cooked French fry. I'm then gonna rest these in the fridge. This can be ideally overnight or an hour or so before I do the second cook, which is gonna be that first initial fry at 200. Now, I just wanna go over the fat. This is another thing that will set these apart from regular French fries is the type of fat you use. Now, it just makes sense that at the Fat Duck restaurant, they used duck fat for the French fries, but duck fat just makes it so much better. When you're frying things in general, here's something to take into account. If you use something like this pot, for example, full of fryer oil, if you use something like that, it's gonna work, but it's not gonna hold as well. So it's gonna hold better if I were to use an animal fat. That's because if you can see, when animal fat cools, see how it's like solidifying a bit? So you're gonna create like an outer layer on that French fry. Or even, for example, say you wanna make a donut that's gonna hold longer and better, you're gonna wanna use like an animal fat, like a beef fat, or you could even use, what's it called? Like vegetable shortening or lard, anything like that. It's gonna create like this outer protectant sort of shell. I got this from Harold McGee. If you guys read on Food and Cooking, Harold McGee, the best. But yeah, that's gonna create like this outer protectant shell, while as in when you use a regular fryer oil, like peanut oil or canola, it's gonna absorb it, and it's gonna be more spongy, and it won't have that shell, and it's just gonna not hold as well. You could kinda tell when you bite into a donut that's been fried in regular fryer oil, you could like feel the oils coming out of it, as opposed to an animal fat. I'm just ranting on this, but yeah, that's just another reason why you should use a... Also, it tastes good. Duck fat tastes ******* delicious, so why not use it on a French fry? That'll make it more of a Michelin star French fry. You can actually flavor your oils. This is something that we would do at some of our spots, is put some herbage in the oil, and it's gonna make a really nice flavor to this already flavorful duck fat. So you can flavor your oils too, and that's gonna just help up it up a bit. Make it more fine dining, I guess, if you will. I left them in here overnight. Check it out. They're more manageable if you leave them in the fridge overnight. You can hold them up and handle them better, and I also think it's gonna make a better product. Now, while I think this looks cool, I still prefer just to cut them with the skins on and everything. So I'd say you could still just cut your potato into wedges and do the same method. I'm probably going to do that next time. I love having the skins on my French fries. I'm aiming for around 250 to 270 degrees Fahrenheit for the initial blanch in the oil. Okay, blanch, fry, whatever you wanna call it. I'm blanching them just like a regular French fry. You wanna take them until they're just sort of leathery, outside-skin looking. I did it at 270 to 300 degrees Fahrenheit in the oil just until I got that texture. I'm also really enjoying the rusticness of these fries. They're all not the same size. They're all broken up. They got some craggliness to it, and the cat wants some French fries, it sounds like, too. They got a sort of broken-upness to them. They're not all the same. I love the way these look. These are going in the fridge for one last time, and you can hold them in the fridge until you wanna fry them. I'd say for about, I don't know, a few days to a week. So if you are in a restaurant, you would hold these in the walk-in or in your low boil and fry them off to order. So yeah, you can hold these off. They're ready to go on the next fry. Now, what should you season your fries with? That's up to you. For me, I love this mixture so much. I even put it on pizza. Garlic powder, and then I'll do salt. So this is about, I'd say like a one to four ratio of garlic powder to salt, and then just a touch of citric acid in there. Give that a little mixy mix, and the result is, it might sound weird, but it's ******* delicious, a sour garlic salt. And I always had this in the restaurants on me. I put it on all my family meals. I ******* love sour garlic salt. So for me, that is a must on French fries for the seasoning. You could maybe add a little kick with some paprika or something, but sour garlic salt, don't sleep on that. In a restaurant setting, the oil, the fat, whatever you're using to fry, it's gonna last much longer in a restaurant setting because you have a larger fryer, which has more oil, which is gonna, in turn, make it last longer. But you could still stretch it at home if you were to, say, filter it every time. You filter it every time, and this is animal fat. So I would put this right back into my refrigerator, cool it off completely, and then I could even separate it into little jars or whatever. But as you can see, this fat is still pretty clear. It's still pretty clean. So I'm just gonna put it away. I'm not gonna waste money here. It's got like a really fluffy interior. Can you see that? Wow. Wow, wow, wow. Does that look any good to you?