Tricks to preserve chips (french fries)?

Question

Since I can remember I've always been crazy about chips (french fries for the Americans). As a result I always make too much when I make them for me. The problem I have and have always had is that they never seem to keep very well. The minute they cool off they become floury and stale. I find that this even happens with oven chips.

When I was a kid my mother used to reheat chips for me in the morning, melting some butter over it, which help rehydrate them somewhat and give them a bit of flavour, but this never really worked all too well.

What I'd like to know is if any of you know of some tricks to help preserve the chips? And also for interest's sake why this happens? This never seems to happen with baked potato or mash. They do lose some of their flavour sometimes, but not in the same way chips do.

Answer 1

Here is an excellent recipe by the guys over at Cooking Issues (and also a follow up report) with almost everything you'd ever want to know about chips. That first recipe is supposedly good even after they've cooled off:

Our standard fries are good even when cold.

Another option is to cook a lot of chips but stop after their first frying and freeze them; when you want to eat them, simply put the frozen chips into the fryer for the second frying. This also has added benefits:

Freezing acts like partial dehydration. When the frozen fries are finished, they liberate water freely, leading to rapid dehydration and good crust formation with a porous interior. Pre-frozen fries are crunchier than fresh and stay crisper longer after they are fried, but they tend toward hollow fry.

Answer 2

I've found that reheating Fries/chips in the toaster oven is the best way to reheat them. They're crispy and not dried. They end up just as good as before. if you don't have a toaster oven, maybe a standard oven would work for you?

Answer 3

If you prepare a lot of chips and blanch them in boiling water for 5-7 minutes, then drain them well, you can freeze them and then just use them as you need them. That is how they prepare frozen chips at the factory. but they don't keep more than about two hours when they've been par-fried first - they lose texture and won't fry crisp.

I've known a lot of chip shops prepare chips by frying at low temperature first, then put them to one side and fry portions as customers ask for them, but with the waxy varieties of potato used for chips in the UK they don't keep more than about two hours when they've been par-fried first - they lose texture and won't fry crisp.

Not a lot you can do to revive them when they have been fried .

My mother would peel the potatoes and cut them into thin slices which she cooked in the frying pan - "frying pan chips" as they were called in our family.

Quite often she would peel the potatoes the day before, then leave them to one side in a bowl, covered with water. They always tasted better when she did that ...

Answer 4

I think we should just eat them when they come out or heat them back up in water. You can just put them back in the chip pan or boil at a flame under them.