Some vegetable oils are still out of stock and also expensive. In the UK, the fish fryers association even fears that half of the fish and chip shops there will have to close if there is a doubt. We can make fries that taste like they came from the takeaway without liters of oil.
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Vegetable oils are currently still very popular. Carsten Hoppe notices this again and again when he buys oil for his catering service or food truck. For years, Carsten paid almost ten euros for ten liters of oil. Currently, the price has tripled and is around 35 euros, he says. In the meantime, the ten-liter canister has cost him just under 50 euros.
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Among other things, Carsten needs the oil for the fries that he sells in his food truck. On YouTube, many also know him as “Pommes Män”. His channel is all about fried potatoes. For the Pommes Män one thing is clear: French fries from the fryer taste best.
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“Basically, everything that can be fried always tastes better because fat is the flavor carrier.”
Carsten Hoppe, runs a catering company in Münster and is known on YouTube as the “French fries man”
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Crispy fries without deep fryer
But an oven can also do crispy fries, he says. Hardly any oil is needed for this, just the right approach. “If you do it right, you can actually get the fries relatively close to takeaway fries.”
For home-made fries that taste like they were made by a professional, Carsten recommends:
- Choose floury or waxy potatoes so that the fries are crispy on the outside and soft on the inside
- Peel or leave the peel on – depending on your taste
- cut small
- wash off
- pre-boil in the pot for about four minutes, potatoes should not be overcooked
- Add a teaspoon of baking soda to the boiling water
- drain
- mix with a dash of oil
- Bake at 180 to 200 degrees for about 30 minutes, turning occasionally
- Spice up
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Air Fryer: A small oven
The recipe also works with an air fryer. You don’t even need vegetable oil for frozen fries, it’s already on the fries when we buy them.
Hot air fryers are trendy right now. But the device is not a fryer as we know it, explains Carsten. It also works without fat. The hot air fryer is basically like a small convection oven. The advantage: it is ready for use after just a few seconds. Minutes of preheating, as with the classic oven, is no longer necessary with the hot air fryer.
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