You don’t have to travel to France for the perfect French fries. If you did, you’d be traveling to the wrong country because French fries originated in Belgium.
France may have given the world a lot of things – after all, it did give America the Statue of Liberty, but one thing that is for sure not French is the French fries.
Story of the “French” fry
This is a short and very much simple story. Belgian people in the seventeenth century were eating fried fish a lot. During harsh winters, however, when rivers froze, and people became unable to catch their food, they switched to frying potatoes instead.
It’s known that the first regions to fry potatoes were Andenne, Huy in Wallonia, Dinant and the Namur region, all traversed by the river Meuse.
Potatoes were even sliced in the form of fish and prepared the same way fish was prepared.
The Belgian fries came to be known as French fries when American soldiers, stationed in Belgium at the end of World War I, named the food after the language used by the Belgian army and in Wallonia, which was French.
And we’ve been calling Belgian fries French ever since. In Belgium, the food is called “frites”.
The rules to making perfect Belgian fries
- The golden rule to making authentic Belgian fries is to never use frozen ingredients. So Belgian people never use frozen fries to make frites.
Some of the frites stalls in the country will use frozen potatoes because it’s more convenient and it allows them to produce as much of the food as possible in as little time as possible, but authentic frites are made using only quality potatoes.
- Another rule is to choose potatoes that are 50 percent soft and 50 percent firm, so frites are never made from potatoes that are either too firm or too soft.
The best potatoes to use are the older ones because these would have developed enough starch, which is important when making fries.
- And the next most important thing to remember is that Belgian fries are fried twice. That’s the trick and that’s what makes fries crispier.
Belgian fries are usually 1 cm in size and rectangular, but people make them various sizes because size contributes to frites being crunchier or softer. For example, thinner sliced potatoes make crunchy fries while larger sliced potatoes make soft-in-the-center fries.
Size is thus a personal matter, but if you prefer frites that are crispy on the outside and have a soft inside, choose to cut potatoes traditional Belgian size.
How they’re made:
A good amount of oil is necessary to make the food because good frites require deep-frying. Oil should reach at least halfway up the pan. That means 3 to 4 cups of good quality vegetable oil and preferably oil that has not been used before.
For the first frying, oil is heated to 325°F or 150°C.
Potatoes, cut to the preferred size and dried in a clean dish towel, are divided into small batches. A batch should contain no more than one cup of cut potatoes.
Oil now heated, the potatoes are fried for up to 5 minutes until lightly golden. After the first frying, they can be kept at room temperature until second frying and serving time.
The second frying is done at 175°C for one to two minutes. This is when the fries become browner and crispy.
The fries are never covered because this produces moisture inside the container, making potatoes turn soft.
Belgium fries, frites or French fries, can be served with a variety of toppings. Most popular are cheese, mayonnaise, pickles, and ketchup – the American way.