Fries, Frozen vs. Fresh | The Ultimate Test
When evaluating fries for your brand, take into consideration regional preferences. Tater Tots do well in certain areas of the country, while others prefer standard fries. In addition, look through frozen varieties and if you have the space, play around with hand-cutting potatoes. There is no right or wrong answer to which fries you should serve, it’s all about how you execute them. Your consumer will fall in love with what you offer, if its consistent and tasty.
Frozen Fries
Let’s kick this thing off! Frozen fries offer an amazing variety of options. The best part about frozen fries is their consistency. Aside from the cooking and handling, the production lies on the supplier. If there is an issue, they are held accountable, refund and fix this issue. Another benefit of frozen fries is the coating. We alluded to this in the previous fry blog. Most frozen fries receive a starch coating that helps with the cooking process. Essentially it is used to crisp the outside, while keeping the inside soft and fluffy. Without this coating, fries would turn brown quickly in the fryer due to caramelization of the sugar content in the potato. A great example of a unique coating is at Burger King. It provides a great texture and keeps the fries uber-consistent.
The hardest part about frozen fries is storage. When you store fresh fries, they are compact, because they are still in full potato form; with frozen fries they are cut and packaged. Make sure you have ample freezer storage if you go this route.
Another issue is sugar-tips. Potatoes go through a lot in their short life. They are harvested from the dirt, stored in a cool dark room, coated with a solution to help with shelf life, shipped to production, manufactured (if applicable), packaged and shipped to your door, all before being cooked for your consumer. Typically speaking, harvest happens once a year for some varieties, others twice, not much more than that. Some potatoes are months old before they take a bath in your fryer. All that prolonged sitting causes the potatoes to lose moisture, naturally. The first area to lose their moisture on the potato is the ends. When you cook an older potato there isn’t enough moisture to protect the sugars in the ends, which causes browning, thus the sugar tips. This is a completely edible piece of the potato; however, it is relatively unappealing. The flavor and texture are not the same as the center of the fry and most people simply eat around it.
In addition, you’ll receive what are called “waterspouts”. This is just part of the game when it comes to fries. Potatoes life source, water, runs straight through the middle of the potato, lengthwise. This is where the root distributes water through the potato. When a potato is harvested, that area is the highest density of water and the softest part of the potato. If you were to cook this piece at the same time as let’s say an outer piece, it would be significantly soggier than its counterpart. That is due to the water content. It would take a longer amount of time to turn that water into steam and remove it from the potato. Think about when you have fries from anywhere really; you get a large amount that a crispy perfection and then a handful are limp and soggy. That’s what we are referring to here. Again, completely normal and part of the potato game.
Last issue we’ll talk about for frozen fries is around freezer burn. I think we are all familiar with what this is. Moisture evaporating and collecting on the outside of a product, right? Well, when you fry a freezer burned product, you are essentially dropping a water coated item into the fryer. It becomes very volatile in the hot oil and doesn’t cook evenly. Oil doesn’t like water and it will tell you about it! The other issue that comes with freezer burn is that evaporated water had to come from somewhere; it came from the fries. You are now cooking a dehydrated version of your original product. As we spoke about before, this causes the sugars to burn and the product to fail. If you have open product in the freezer, keep it covered, tight; this is the main cause of freezer burn. In addition, don’t over order product. The longer it sits in the freezer, the worse the integrity gets.
Enough boring science on potatoes….
We talked about different varieties that may suit your brand in the last blog. If you haven’t read it, click here to check it out. Cook times range all over the board for different varieties. Depending on where you set your fryer temps to, will also impact the cook time. Manufacturers will always provide a recommended cook time and they will even work with you on getting this piece right. Ultimately it is up to you to validate processes, procedures, and product.
Fresh Fries
Okay, let’s move onto fresh potatoes. This is such a buzz-worthy word for your menu; “hand-cut fries”. It is a lot of work to get it right though and it requires special equipment. You’re going to need a potato slicer and a dedicated sink. Why dedicated? Because if you’re doing it right, you’ll be cutting them all the time. Potatoes should be cut directly into water. This allows some of the access starch to be removed. A lot of concepts will triple wash their hand-cut fries to remove as much starch as possible, i.e., avoid excess browning.
Next step is blanching the fries. If you are not going to cook the fries, they must remain in water. If you keep the fries at room temperature, dry, they will brown almost immediately. Furthermore, if you store potatoes under refrigeration, they develop a sweet taste. This is due to the starches being converted to sugars. You obviously don’t want either of these to happen.
Let’s assume you blanch the fries right after cutting. You’re going to want to drain these fries and shake off excess moisture; remember oil hates water! You’ll fry these fries at a lower temperature to cook the potato on the inside. There are fryers out there with fry basket racks that sit right over the fryer for cooked storage; otherwise, you’ll need to look at a cooling and storage option. Most concepts will cook what they need for a shift, prior to opening to avoid having two fryer temps. Now, onto finishing. The fryer will be set at a standard temperature, i.e., 350-375°F and you will fry the cooked fries for a second time. This will heat the interior and crisp the exterior. At this point, season and serve!
It makes it sound easy, but it’s important to remember the work that goes into hand-cut fries. You will most likely need a dedicated employee to manage this. “That’s a lot of money.” True, but if it brings in guests specifically for your fries, it pays for itself.
Let’s dive into storage and potato varieties. Potatoes will come in bulk; either a box or a 50 lbs. bag. They are heavy and take up dry storage space. One bag or box can go a long way. Here’s the hard part about fresh potatoes, they attract bugs if they are rotting. While they are inside of a bag, it’s hard to tell which potatoes are the culprit as well. Just like frozen fries, distribution centers are always willing to accept spoiled product, so make sure you log this.
Another challenge of fresh potatoes is the sprouting issue. We have all seen sprouts on a potato at the grocery store and we have cut off the area and still used it. Did you know that sprouts on a potato are actually toxic? Granted, it does take a significant amount eaten to achieve this, but it is still something to think about and something you are going to have to manage. One last piece to look for in fresh potatoes is the greenish hue. This is a condition called “light-struck” where a chemical called Solanine builds up. Essentially it received too much sun. If enough of the green section is eaten it can cause illness though.
Now that we have laid out pros and cons for both fresh and frozen potatoes, let’s move on to potato varieties for hand-cut fries.
There are too many to mention in this blog. We will dive into a few of them but focus more on the style and benefits. The most common hand-cut potato out there is the russet. It’s the standard potato that most of us buy at the grocery store. It’s common and easy to use, but it comes with an issue. It has a higher starch content than other varieties. This causes the potato to brown. Browning is not necessarily an issue, simply a different flavor as long as you do not take it too far.
There are yellow and white fleshed potato varieties that offer the other end of the spectrum. These varieties have less starch, therefore, less browning; think Belgian style fries. At ACG, these are the best in our opinion. The sugars won’t caramelize as much, leaving you with a perfect golden-brown exterior. A great example of this type of potato is at In-N-Out. They use the Kennebec potato. Play with as many varieties as you possibly can. There are plenty of under-utilized potato varieties out there to set you apart.
Let’s move on to the number 1 mismanaged raw material in the kitchen. Any guesses?
Fryer oil
Every concept that we visit has a different ideology around managing their fryer oil. There are some concepts that toss their oil too soon and others not soon enough. Did you know that KFC and other fried chicken concepts will take a scoop of old oil and reserve it for the new, clean oil? In essence they are seasoning the newly implemented oil.
You see, what a lot of owner/operators miss is the importance of a consistent flavor profile throughout the week via your oil. If you are early on your dump cycle and constantly have new oil rotating, you’re missing out on an amazing component of your food. There is a happy medium in here and there are tools to help. If you’re mainstay is focused on the fryer, think about seasoning new oil, it could be a game changer for you. As for fries, make sure to use the tools that are available to check oil quality. For some reason, this step goes to the wayside. Owners rely on cook’s judgement to change or even a standard schedule without evaluating the oil. That 80% used oil, could be your most flavorful component to your menu; don’t throw it out! Anything that goes into your fryer is going to pick up on the undertones of the oil and change that product completely.
To-Go Packaging
Fries may be one of the worst travelers in the restaurant industry, aside from a salad tossed in dressing. There are ways to mitigate this poor performance and it is all around the packaging. McDonald’s, BK, and others all carry the same style fry vessel for one reason, it works well. The reason this container works is because it is tall and has ventilation.
The height is important because fries rest on each other, absorb the heat and redistribute; essentially a self-containing oven. Eventually that heat will find ways to dissipate, but if you’re fries are spread out evenly in a flat container, they’re already cold. Ventilation is so important to let the steam out. If steam is trapped in a container, it has no where to go, aside from accumulating on the fries. They become wet and soggy. Long story short, look at how your fries travel and up your game. They’ll never be perfect for to-go orders, but you can buy yourself more time to the consumers house if you’ve improved your packaging.
Sauce Game
The last piece we want to talk about on fries is the sauce game. Sauce has become uber critical, not only from variety, but from a pricing standpoint as well. There are very few concepts out there that still charge for a side sauce, keep that in mind. Fries can take on so many incredible flavors with the addition of a fun, unique sauce. There are concepts like Raising Cane’s, where consumers leave with cups of sauce! I’m not saying break the bank here, I’m saying understand the value of a unique sauce. Millennials constantly post on platforms such as Tik Tok about their unadulterated love for Raising Cane’s sauce. It’s free marketing, the kind that keeps your business going.
We hope you enjoyed this two-part blog on everything fries! If you are looking for more information on the science, strategy, or development of your menu, reach out. We’d love to speak with you on how we can help your brand grow.