Potatoes cut into thin strips and fried in five minutes, salted after they come out and eaten with pink sauce. Drying the potato is what makes them crisp.
Dry the potatoes
This is the one thing that separates crisp fries from limp ones, and the recipe never mentions it.
A freshly cut potato is wet, both from its own moisture and from any rinsing. Water hitting hot oil turns instantly to steam, and that steam has to escape through the surface of the potato. While it is escaping, nothing can crisp.
Pat them dry with a tea towel or kitchen paper before they go anywhere near the pan. It also stops the oil spitting, which is the other reason to bother.
Do not crowd the pan
The second step says to make sure there is enough oil to submerge them, and the unspoken half of that is not to put in so many that there is not.
Every piece of cold potato added takes heat out of the oil. Enough of them at once and the temperature falls below frying point entirely, at which point the potato absorbs oil instead of cooking in it. That is what greasy fries are.
Two batches of five minutes beat one batch of ten.
Salt afterwards
Not before, and not in the oil.
Salt draws water out of raw potato by osmosis, which undoes the drying you just did. And salt scattered into hot oil spits.
The last step gets this right: salt to taste once they are out and drained.
Pink sauce
Salsa rosada: mayonnaise and tomato sauce mixed in roughly equal parts, sometimes with a little lime.
It is what Colombia puts on fries, and on burgers, and on almost anything fried. It arrives without being asked for.
More potatoes
- Potato croquettes — with a cheese centre.
- Mashed potatoes — the other way.
- Papas rellenas — fried and filled.
- Chicken or beef burger — what goes beside them.
- Yuca fries — cassava instead of potato.
French Fries FAQ
Almost always because the potato went in wet. Cut potato holds water, and water hitting hot oil turns to steam, which is why they spit and why the surface never crisps. Pat them dry with a tea towel first.
It helps: it takes off the loose starch that makes the fries stick to each other. But then they have to be dried thoroughly, which matters more than the rinsing.
No. Every potato added drops the oil temperature, and oil that has cooled gets absorbed rather than driven off. Two batches beat one crowded pan.
After they come out. Salt on raw potato draws water to the surface, which is the opposite of what you want, and salt in hot oil spits.
Mayonnaise and tomato sauce mixed in roughly equal parts. It is what Colombia serves with fries, with burgers and with almost anything fried.
Hot enough that a piece of potato sizzles immediately when it goes in. If it sits there quietly, the oil is too cool and the fries will absorb it.
📖 Recipe
Ingredients
- 4 large potatoes (peeled and cut into thin, long strips)
- Enough oil for frying
- Salt (to taste, after frying)
Notas
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a pan over medium heat and let it get properly hot.
- Add the cut potatoes, making sure there is enough oil to submerge them.
- Fry them for about 5 minutes, watching them so they do not burn.
- Lift them out onto paper towels to drain.
- Serve, salting them to taste, with tomato sauce or pink sauce.
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