We are going on a skiing trip & are staying in a Condo. Can I precut potatoes &/or sweet potatoes into 1/4-inch matchstick fries before our trip then bake them there?
When making french fries, can I precut them before baking or frying them
bulk-cookingfrench-fries
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Best Answer
Regarding potatoes, not sweet potatoes:
It's actually great to precut potatoes for French fries, it gives you an opportunity to soak them in water, which removes the starch and simple sugars from the outside of the fries and even from just below the surface. In fact, many if not most places that make fresh cut French fries do cut the fries in advance and leave them soaking in the refrigerator until fried to order.
You don't say how long your drive is going to be, but if it is less than six hours, you can just put the cut fries and ice water in a Tupperware container for the trip. Longer than six hours you should probably either replenish the ice during the trip or use a cooler. Of course, depending on the weather, the trunk may work as a fridge - but don't let them freeze!
Your soaking container should either be pretty close to at least half-again the volume of your cut fries, or you should rinse them well first and change the water at least once while the fries are soaking.
From Caroline Russock writing for Serious Eats:
America's Test Kitchen (Sorry, paywalled) says pretty much exactly the same thing:
From the recipe attached the Serious Eats article:
Be sure to dry them well before cooking!
Fresh cut French fries were a big part of the business in my café. It wasn't unusual for us to have French fries soaking for as long as two days, perhaps even three. I never noticed any quality problem from soaking too long, but the French fries were simply not good if we didn't have time to soak them for at least a half an hour.
Cook's Illustrated (also known as America's Test Kitchen) (Sorry, again paywalled) looked at oven fries. For that application, they soaked the cut potatoes in hot water. I suspect that starting at a higher temperature was beneficial for baking. To get the best of both worlds I might do a final soak in hot water. As I mentioned above, I haven't seen over-soaking as a problem.