hello this is chef john from food wishes comm with airfryer french fries that's
right since I missed the whole insta Pot trend I figured I should do at least one
recipe in an airfryer while people are still using them and what better recipe
to feature than the French fry and while my method for these is going to be very
similar to the other recipes out there I am going to show you one extra trick
that might possibly make these come out a little better and you're also going to
get to see what happens when a chef can't decide on which dipping sauce to
serve so stay tuned for that but in the meantime let's go ahead and talk about
our choice of potato all right for these we really do want to use a russet potato
okay golden yellow potatoes will sort of work but not as well in red potatoes not
at all and then what we'll do after we've peeled a couple of those is go
ahead and slice them into some nice even sticks and what I like to do to start
this is make one slice about 3/8 of an inch thick off the narrowest side and
then we'll turn that so the cut sides down which is gonna safely allow us to
make the rest of our cuts without the potato moving around and since the first
slice was 3/8 of an inch we'll try to make the rest of these slices 3/8 of an
inch okay most of the recipes out there say 1/2 inch but I think a slightly
smaller stick works better and then what we'll do is simply slice these across
the same width as these slices are thick ok so if my slice was 3/8 of an inch
thick by making these slices every 3/8 of an inch
we should theoretically end up with a beautifully square uniform french fry
but of course theories in real life are seldom the same thing and as you can see
I do have a little variation in size here and there but that's fine relax
just try to get them close that's all we ever ask and then once cut we'll go
ahead and transfer those into a bowl a nice cold fresh water and as soon as we
do that you're gonna notice the water gets kind of cloudy which is caused by
the starch from the potato which is exactly what we want to remove before
these get fried and the standard procedure for these is to let the french
fries soak for about 30 to 60 minutes before draining drying and frying and
I've done that and it works just fine but I'm going to show you one
alternative method and that would be to give these just a quick initial rinse
and then drain the water off and then pour over a couple quarts of
boiling water at which point we'll give him a quick stir and then let him sit
there just like that for ten minutes and yes if you want you can just put the
potatoes in the pot of boiling water and just let him sit in that but I thought
this would be easier to film and much more dangerous for me which makes it a
little more exciting but anyway like I said we'll let our french fry sit in
that boiling water for about ten minutes at which point we'll drain those well
and then transfer them onto some paper towels and we are definitely gonna want
to spread those out into a single layer and then let them dry and cool
completely and the idea here with this alternative method is that the boiling
water is also gonna help remove the starch plus it may help prep that
surface to become a little crispier after frying although as usual no
promises so like I said we'll go ahead and let those cool and dry at which
point we can transfer those into a mixing bowl and toss them with two
teaspoons of olive oil or the cooking oil of your choice and if we were gonna
season these with something like I don't know a shake a cayenne this would be the
time except for salt I do not like to solve these until the end okay some
people salt them now some people solve them halfway through but I'll just do
that once they're cooked and then what we'll do once these have been well
coated in that oil let's go ahead and transfer those into our air fryer basket
but we don't want to just dump them all in okay I think it's worth the extra
minute to sort of stack them up so that we maximize that airflow that's gonna go
in and around those and that's it we'll go ahead and pop that basket into the
air fryer and we'll set our temperature at 375 and our time to 15 minutes at
which point we're gonna want to stop and give them a toss and yes I know some
folks say you should toss these every five minutes which I've tried but it
really doesn't make any difference especially if you were semi careful
placing these in but anyway that's up to you I mean you are for all the Mike
Tyson of your fry son so you go ahead and toss those as often as you want and
then we'll go ahead and pop those back in and continue to fry them for about
ten more minutes or until done and of course that's going to depend on the
size of your fries but I feel like 25 minutes or so is a good guess
and that's it once fried we'll go ahead and transfer those tool Bowl and I'm
gonna go ahead and give those a toss with some kosher salt and yes those do
sound crispy and you know what they are for a little while all right while the
airfryer does a fantastic job at this these will not stay as crispy as long as
regular deep fried french fries so eat them fast which is what I did after
transferring those next to my secret french fry dipping sauce which is a
combination of honey mustard spicy ketchup and garlic aioli which were
basically the three different dipping sauces I consider doing with this and I
just couldn't decide so in a moment of temporary insanity I did all three
together in one bowl and the results were surprisingly not terrible and it
actually worked very well but forget the sauces this video is all about the fries
which for being done with so much less fat really are excellent okay like I
already said they don't stay quite as crisp as long but considering how much
easier and less messy this method is and of course apparently we're saving a few
calories the slightly less awesome texture is a fine trade-off okay I think
the mistake people make is comparing airfryer french fries to deep fried
french fries when the actual comparison should be air fryer french fries or no
fries at all and I should probably mention this was not a commercial I was
just too lazy to pixelate the logo and truth be told no matter which air fryer
you're using this method is gonna work out just about the same so if you happen
to have one of these newfangled contraptions I really do hope you give
these a try soon so please follow the links below for the ingredient amounts a
printable written recipe and much more info as usual and as always
you