Chips, Not Fries!

[Morning Glory]

I note that McDonald's website refers to them as French Fries.

 

[buckytom]

Well, again, there are no real typical fries in America. OK, maybe the 3 major fast food joints are somewhat similar in playdough size and shape, but even they deviate from that norm to get an advantage in sales by trying diferent things like "natural cut" (which means a bit of skin is left on the ends), or crinkle cut, or waffle cut.

 

[buckytom]

For me, the real problem with chips or fries in America is the monoculture of farming potatoes.
Far too mamy potato growers have all gone to growing the same type and size of potato, all to feed that fast food industry. All long and slender baking type spuds which make the best, longest fries.

It was a similar type of monoculture practice that helped cause the potato famine in Ireland in the 1840s, and now may begin to wipe out today's banana crop.

 

[Cinisajoy]

These are the sort of fries sold by McDonalds in the UK. The same in America I think. Are they typical of American fries?

View attachment 6161

Those are typical of McDonald's fries. They are in no way shape form or fashion your typical American fries. They are cheap, processed dehydrated potatoes. The only place you can get those exact fries is at McDonald's. McDonald's is not a restaurant. It is a fast food place (even the bank makes that distinction.)
There is one big McDonald's factory. Everything they sell comes to their stores, partially cooked and frozen. Their hamburgers are not pure beef but mostly filler.
Unless they are busy, you walk in, order and within 2 minutes have your food.
Now yes, the size is typical of fast food places but not of a regular restaurant.
Any place that uses potatoes makes them like your chips.

You couldn't pay me enough to eat a McYuk fry.

 

[Cinisajoy]

I note that McDonald's website refers to them as French Fries.

Yes, that is what they call them.
I think I see our problem.
Are all chips in the UK pretty much identical?
In the US, a french fry can be everything from McYuk's size to the size of your chips to wedge size fries.
There is no normal fry.

 

[Elawin]

What are chips like in Italy?

The ones we had in Italy and Switzerland about 50 years ago stuck in my memory. They were long, greasy (oily?), skinny things covered in herbs and stuff - not a bit like British chips. The ones we got in Germany were like British ones. Some of the street food sellers used to give you a small plate of chips with a sauce for dipping. Curry sauce was favourite when I lived there for anything that could be dipped (except for Currywurst which was basically a frankfurter covered spices rather than a sauce). I never had chips in Austria, any of the times I went there, or in Greece; and chips in France were avoided wherever possible. Belgian chips were like ours, as of course were Irish ones.

Give me a plate of British chips, double-fried, with lashings of brown sauce or a couple of Wally's, any time

 

[Yorky]

In Yorkshire, these are chips..........

Albeit rather short ones.

The ideal way to cook chips is in beef dripping. However, given that the cost of beef dripping is now akin to that of plutonium, oil or lard is virtually always substituted.

 

[Yorky]

These are the sort of fries sold by McDonalds in the UK. The same in America I think. Are they typical of American fries?

I've had two McDonald's burgers in the last 20 years. One because I was hungry and in a hurry, the second time because I was hungry and there was nothing else open. If they had arrived with those, they would have quickly found their way into a bin.

I'm surprised that the burgers didn't.

 

[classic33]

I note that McDonald's website refers to them as French Fries.

Standard worldwide menu.

 

[sidevalve]

To be fair it's each to its place. The chip is a different animal to the fry [or french fry] and we enjoy both. Big fat chips would just seem weird at a McDonalds - horses for courses really.

 

[Morning Glory]

Are all chips in the UK pretty much identical?

Pretty well - but perhaps not so much, these days. The traditional British chips look like @Yorky 's but usually a bit longer. Certainly, if you go to a Fish 'n Chip shop, those are the type you will get well, probably not as good as @Yorky s!

 

[Ken Natton]

There is one great British tradition associated with chips that no-one has mentioned, although I accept it has declined in recent times – burning down your kitchen by putting on the chip pan and then forgetting about it until the smoke starts to come under the living room door. Okay, I’m being a little facetious, but when I was young, if it would be overstating it to say it was a common occurrence, it really was not so rare. I don’t have any statistics on how many chip pan fires the fire brigade attended each year, but it was a lot. I even recall one of those public information type adverts showing you how to use a damp tea towel to cover the chip pan. And I seem to remember a campaign to get everyone to keep a fire blanket in their kitchen. In any case, we have no deep fat fryer or chip pan in our house, so the only chips we have at home are oven chips – long way short of ‘proper’ chips I accept. And one or two things we do cook that call for a deep fat fryer we cook perfectly successfully by shallow frying them – breaded mushrooms for example.

What are chips like in Italy?

Oh and, I had thought to mention this on a different thread but since the question has been asked here – last Saturday morning on Saturday Kitchen, one of the clips they showed was Nigella making what she called Tuscan fries. Now the unusual thing she did was put the raw chips into cold oil, there was a complex explanation she gave about why, I’m afraid you’ll have to watch the clip if you want to know it – it should still be on iPlayer at the moment. But the bit that interested me, she dropped sage, rosemary and thyme into the hot oil to flavour the chips. Never occurred to me. She did them with a steak that she prepared in a very particular way, and I may well have a go at that. But not the chips. Yes, all of life is a risk, but it is about judgement of reasonable risk. Chip pans in the home, in my opinion, lie well outside the bounds of reasonable, acceptable risk.

 

[Rocklobster]

Tell me...do you guys blanch your chips first or do you just fry them up in one go?

 

[Yorky]

Chip pans in the home, in my opinion, lie well outside the bounds of reasonable, acceptable risk.

This is mine. Temperature controlled so it would be extremely unlikely that it would burst into flames. We never leave it unattended anyway.

https://www.cookingbites.com/threads/delonghi-rotofry-f28311.8500/

 

[Yorky]

Tell me...do you guys blanch your chips first or do you just fry them up in one go?

Personally I've tried blanching and double frying but have finally concluded that the potatoes that we get here (called Chinese/Dutch potatoes) produce satisfactory chips after rinsing and soaking in cold water for an hour or so and then drying with kitchen paper. [Then cook in the deep fry for about 7 minutes].