Troubleshooting Soft and Mushy Oven Fries
I've been making oven fries for many years. My method: wash potatoes (Russet), dry, cut, toss with olive oil and sometimes seasoning like paprika, no salt, bake in hot oven on low rack, turn with spatula 2/3 way through. Result: nicely browned, crispy fries. Inside is fully cooked yet firm.
I recently saw a recipe for oven fries with a spice blend I decided to try: paprika, pressed garlic, salt, pepper, rice flour, olive oil, all mixed together and tossed on potatoes. Otherwise, exact same method of prep and cooking. (The recipe said either rice flour or semolina or bread crumbs.) The result is they look beautiful on the outside and the flavor is great but they are not crispy and inside the potato is mushy. There was nothing else cooking in the oven that could've caused excessive moisture.
Rather than experimenting to try to figure out why they are so different, I thought I'd ask: What is it about this new blend of seasonings that is preventing the fries from getting crisp and making the inside mushy?
Best Answer
I would guess that the rice flour is the culprit. The flour is absorbing the cold olive oil before the oil is able to fry it. If you were deep frying, the hot oil would crisp the flour before it was able to absorb the oil.
Whoever wrote the recipe was probably adapting a recipe for traditional fries to work in an oven and forgot to leave out the flour. Luckily rice flour is completely flavorless, so doing away with it shouldn't affect the taste at all.
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Why are my fries soggy in the oven?
Don't overcrowd your baking sheet. Instead of just piling more onto one baking pan, spread them out over two baking pans or cook them in batches. If they're all crammed onto one pan, they'll steam instead of bake, and you'll end up with soggy fries.Why are my fries mushy?
When fries are cooked at a very high temperature, the starches in them are hydrated (moisture goes in), puffing them up and helping the outer skin get nice and crisp. When these same fries cool, the starches secrete moisture, which makes its way to the fries' crust, leaving them soggy and limp.How do I stop my fries from being mushy?
For crisp, firm fries, fry twiceThe second fry at a higher temperature browns and crisps the fries. Ideally, this is when the surface starch absorbs the last remaining bit of moisture, expands more, and seals the surface for crispness. You do need to have the cooking time for high-starch potatoes just right.Why don t My fries get crispy in the oven?
The secrets to these incredible fries include a few of things, the main one being soaking the raw potatoes before you bake them to remove some of the excess starch. Less starch = more crispiness. When it comes to slicing, I like to cut the fries to be a little thin; but not shoestring-style and not too thick.I remastered Adam Ragusea's Crispy Oven Fries.
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