How hard is it to make a good french fry? (I’m looking at you, Wendy’s)
You slice up a nice, high starch potato (preferably peeled, but that’s my preference…) into fries of uniform thickness, throw them in lots of cold water for a few minutes, drain them well and make sure they’re “dry” to the touch, blanch them in 320 degree oil for 2-3 minutes until they’re pale and floppy, drain the oil and cool, heat the oil to 375 degrees, put them back in, and cook until they are crisp and golden brown.
Now, the blanching part’s already been done for most fast food and casual dining restaurants, they’re not making their fries from scratch. But these places still tend towards bad fries. Burger King and McDonald’s are two fast food places where the fries are usually good. You shouldn’t be pulling fries that are still a pale yellow out of your oil.
This leads me to the conclusion that, generally speaking, if a restaurant serves french fries, and the french fries are mediocre to bad, then the rest of the menu is generally considered questionable at best. A few restaurants avoid the wrath of this theory with their crappy fries and good main dishes, but still. Generally speaking, it’s hard to mess up a french fry, yet people still do it.
