Sous vide fries

Hi. I just started the poutine course and would like to know has anyone not used a sous vide technique for their french fries?

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Pepijn_31744

You could just boil them until they nearly fall apart. Wont be the same result, but it would be comparable.

Pepijn_31744

Alternatively you could use the pot on a stove technique with a ziplock bag. Depending on how accurate your thermometer is and how good your temperature control is, you should end up with the same results as the fries in the video.

Tim_Roth_78505

I posted a comment about controlled-temp potato treatments in the potato boiling thread, but the gist of it is that you actually should be able to achieve some pretty dramatic textural changes with pre-treatments of 60 or 70 degrees C. Working with sweet potatoes, I managed to get a very soft product with a few hours at 70 C and a very stiff product with a similar treatment at only 60 C. Dave Arnold's french fry rigmarole involves a pectinase treatment followed by a blanch step similar to what I tried, and I'd be surprised if you couldn't sous-vide (or really just immersion circulate) your way to something interesting without needing to add enzymes separately. The trick to his, though, is that he can get a surface-specific treatment. It might be possible to do something like a 60 C treatment followed by a 70 C treatment, but it might just lead to the same results as the 55 C blanch that he uses.

Hopefully that makes sense - and sorry if this is already covered in the course. But I agree with Pepijn that should be able to achieve any of this with a pot-on-the-stove option (you can probably just cook the potatoes in straight water, too - the concern here would be loss of flavor, but when I did bagged sweet potatoes, all of the water that remains in the bag has a lot of the flavor to start, so you really end up losing it either way I'd imagine - unless someone has a workaround for this?). Am I correct in assuming you're talking about this recipe, though? Because if so, you should be totally fine with a range of temps between 80 and 100 as far as I'm aware (and based on what I mention above).

(Sorry for the nerd rant)

brittney_61207

Thank you both for the insight!

Yes Tim im using the recipe from the poutine course form chefsteps .

I will take both of your advice and use it to finish the course! btw: Nerd rants are always welcomed!

Pepijn_31744

@Tim Roth, I'm loving the nerd rant. We need more of that please.