Homemade Carcinogenic French Fries!

Throwing caution to the wind, I made some carcinogenic food last night.

Yup, I made french fries.

In case you haven't heard, there was headline making news the other day about how our state's Attorney General is suing potato chip and french fry producers into warning consumers about a potential cancer-causing chemical called acrylamide found in their products.

The acrylamide warning sirens were set off a few years ago by the FDA, which basically makes a meal of burger and fries just about one of the deadliest things you can eat.

Wait a sec! What about the burger, you ask!? Well, as if you didn't have to worry about the fat and cholesterol already, there's a chance that you could be eating Mad Cow beef and that the chargrilled meat itself can give you rectal cancer!

Makes you want to eat just fish for the rest of your life, doesn't it? That is, until you remember that the fish could contain mercury, PCBs, dioxins, and pesticides.

This only reiterates what I've always thought: "Living is dangerous to your health".

Okay, well enough proselytizing from me about that subject, and more about how I made really good homemade fries!

How's that for lead-in!?

I started off with good old Russets. I peeled them, and then cut them into the classic french fry shape. Then I dumped them into a large bowl of water and left the tap running. Getting rid of the outside film of starch from each potato stick is key to a good and crispy crust.

Once the water runs clear, I extracted the potatoes and patted them dry on a paper towel. In the meantime, I heated a good bit of corn oil (enough to cover all the fries with ample room to float).

Once the oil was nice and hot, I slowly lowered the potatoes with a spider and cooked them for about five minutes or until they were still white and floppy.

As soon as it got to this stage, I extracted all the fries from the oil and let them cool in a waiting bowl. Once the fries were cool, I cranked up the heat on the oil and sent the fries back for their final fry.

After they got the golden brown color, I took them out and into a wide bowl lined with a paper towel (to wick away the excess oil). Working rapidly with the hot fries, I quickly sprinkled a few pinches of kosher salt onto the fries and tossed them in the bowl to distribute. I served them immediately because, as everyone knows, "hot fries = good fries".

These were so good, with a fluffy and faintly buttery interior contrasting that crisp and crunchy crust, that I wished I had a nice char-grilled, 'carcinogenic' burger to go with it.