I grew up in a home where scratch cooking was a priority, and we ate in a restaurant maybe once a year if someone's funeral dinner happened to be at the locally famous fried chicken place, the Wayside Inn. It was shameful to use a mix to make a cake, and to this day if one of the men on my mother's side pulls a cake out of the bread box, he will warn us that it came from a mix, so it still matters to them. My mother baked all of our bread, 30 loaves at a time and froze them in a huge deep freezer on the back porch. Every Saturday for lunch we had some of that bread and chili made with the beef from our feedlot. The pinto beans in it were grown in our fields and four of us went through 100 pounds of beans a year.

Anyhow, that's where I got my outlook on food and maybe explains why I am always trying out new recipes that use scratch ingredients, not mixes. And Julia Child is my hero. If I was a shrine building type, I'd have a shrine to her memory in my kitchen.

Here's what Julia Child has to say about deep fat frying in her cookbook "Julia and Jacques Cook at Home:"

"I don't do much deep-fat frying, because it smells up the house. However, the times I have done it in experiments with fried chicken, French fries, and so forth, I have concluded that solid white vegetable shortening, such as Crisco, is the least smelly and most satisfactory frying medium.

I have found that potatoes "use" the fat. The first batch of fries is delicious, fresh-tasting, a real treat. The second is all right, but by the third the potatoes are beginning to take on that greasy-spoon taste, and I don't want to have anything to do with them.

In other words, I really only like fried foods done in fresh fat, and for that reason I find deep-fat frying an expensive way to cook."

This just blows me away because we've all been trained to think that deep frying must only be done in a high smoke point oil like peanut oil, and you'd think that coming up in the 1950s and 1960s when deep frying at home was fairly common, Julia Child must have done a fair share of it and been proud of it.

But now she tells us that was only 'experimenting.'

I'm not saying I think deep frying is the way to go because I agree it's too expensive, and of course the calories, but it was all the thing when I was growing up. Our special birthday dinner was shrimp deep fried in a soft batter, and my mother's family loved making raised donuts, and those soft batter onion rings were the best.

Anyhow, here is Julia Child's method for deep-fried French fries, presumably a small batch so the oil doesn't get un-fresh.

Use large russet potatoes. Wash and peel them and trim into even rectangles. Cut into lengthwise strips 3/8 inch wide on each side. Swish in a large bowl of cold water to remove surface starch and leave them in the water until ready to cook. Dry thoroughly on paper towels.

First Fry: to cook in the middle
Put a bed of paper towels on a tray. Heat 2 1/2 quarts Crisco or peanut or canola oil to 325 degrees. Fry the potatoes in the hot oil without crowding them, turning frequently, for 4 to 5 minutes, or until soft through but not browned. Lift out and spread on the paper towels. Let cool for 10 minutes up to 2 or 3 hours.

Second Fry: to brown them
Just before serving, heat the frying oil to 375 to 400 degrees. Fry the cooked potatoes enough at a time so they are not crowded, turning frequently and for only a minute or two, until golden brown. Drain on paper towels, salt lightly, and continue frying until all are done. Serve as soon as possible.

I don't expect you to run out to the kitchen and make a batch of French fries, this is more about the hypocrisy of bad-mouthing deep fat frying and then providing directions for how to do it.

Comments:

I have always loved raised donuts and have a prize winning recipe. I will share it.

Great post! Gotta love me some scratch cooking. I kinda cringe when I have to make cake from a mix, kinda feels like cheating. Honestly, what are you supposed to say when someone says, "Wow, this is really good?" Gotta love me some Julia Child, as well. She's a classic and quite fun to watch.

Love Julia Child and Jacques Pepin! Appreciate the deep frying tip! I, too, was raised immersed in scratch cooking, which I learned at Mom's elbow from the time I could peek over the counter. She was quite a cook, and I treasure all those cooking recipes and memories. I guess now the term is "foodie." Well, I am one! But the only deep-frying Mom did was her light, delicious, melt-in-your-mouth French crullers, and she did use Crisco for that. Yummy!

Thanks for this introduction to fries home-cooked. Incidentally, one of my close friends is deathly allergic to peanuts and eating anything fried in peanut oil would kill her. People don't often associate fries with peanut oil so they might not even think to question how you made them. I'd stick with Crisco. Is the Jacques Julia cooked with, Jacques Pepin? I met him. We almost had drinks, but my boss, the then president of Times Books frowned on fraternization with the authors.