> You philistine barbarian! I would not feed McDo fries to my dog, let alone
> eat them myself.
>
> Belgians take their fries seriously. The cookbook written by Pierre Wynants,
> chef of the 3-starred restaurant Comme Chez Soi in Brussels, contains a
> recipe for fries.
There is no accomodating the variations from one restaurant to the
next. While going to college, I slaved away in a McD which happened to
be one of the very top ones in the country. To say that we ran a tight
shop is an understatement. There were too many McD high-level managers
and execs that had vacation homes in our area. I knew I always liked
McD fries, but as a manager-trainie, I learned more than I really
wanted to know.
The point is, that Belgian fries and McD fries are remarkably similar.
The primary difference is the length of time in the water soak and the
termperature of the water soak. Also, the diameter of a McD fries is
less. The McD water soak actually does a little bit of cooking, but
also activates the PME enzyme which makes them a little crunchy.
Because of this hot soak, the first fry process is much shorter.
Around 50 seconds or so. At this point, they are dried and frozen. In
the restaurant, the fries are placed in the oil in the frozen state.
The thinness (1/4 inch) of the fries allows the centers to come up to
temperature quicker. If the fries were not in a frozen state, then
thicker fries are possible. The freezing is also important as it makes
the insides more fluffy and not so chewy.
Basically, there are a lot of similarities between Belgium and McD
fries. However, I would say that McD has nearly perfected it and they
really are quite good. The intangibles really can ruin them. The oil
has to be fresh or properly filtered. The fries have to be dumped
frozen into the oil (no suspending them for minutes over the oil to
defrost first), they have to be shaken at exactly the right time and
then at the end of the cooking cycle, drained for the right number of
seconds before dumping into the fry bin. Two shakes (in an "M"
pattern) of salt. Quickly tossing them to blend the salt over the
batch. The time in the bin is actually an important part of the
"finishing" process for the fries. It takes about two minutes for the
heat lamps to bring them just past the over-crispy aspect. At that
point, they are perfect for serving and eating.
Burger King fries totally suck.
--
Ken Norton
ken@xxxxxxxxxxx
http://www.zone-10.com
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