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Comment by mathperson | Hacker News Reader

I think a great part is you can watch someone take a REAL potato with real dirt on it, clean it, cut it up with a massive guillotine thing, insert it into boiling oil, and hand it to you. Beautiful.

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I love me some in n out burgers but unfortunately their fries, while commendably fresh, aren’t very good. You have about 3 mins to eat them before they become cardboard. There are legitimate culinary reasons to freeze potatoes before frying, it bursts the cell walls which helps to achieve a better fry.

As far as west coast burger chains go, The Habit has way better fries.

In N Out’s burgers though are so good, double single animal style with peppers is heaven.

You can get the fries well-done. Also, animal style fries (peppers optional).

Top tip; ask for the fries without salt. You can taste them properly then. I wonder if you can ask for them thick cut too.. I might have to see if there's a secret menu option for that

I for one, love the In-N-Out fries.

In fact, I can no longer eat fries from anywhere else (McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, The Habit, etc.), because I know that they use fake fries.

At In-N-Out, you know that you are eating a freshly sliced potato, that was deep-fried, and served to you.

As has been mentioned in the thread, just because it's not been frozen doesn't really mean anything. Frozen peas are just as good as fresh after all.

The freezing of fries can and does make them better, keeps the inside fluffier after frying as the ice crystals blow up inside.

Even Heston Blumenthal freezes them [0]

[0] http://www.redonline.co.uk/food/recipes/heston-blumenthal-tr...

> Frozen peas are just as good as fresh after all.

In what universe? Fresh peas are significantly better, and I'm not even sure that's an opinion as much as fact.

Edit: If HN had controversial markers, this comment would have one. I've watched the points on it go up and down, negative and positive, for the last hour.

Apparently frozen peas is quite controversial.

I never realised it was controversial. In every conversation I've had with chefs, cookery programmes watched, experience with both fresh and frozen, never once have I come to the conclusion fresh was better.

Added to the fact they last much longer, I can't see any reason to buy fresh (we're talking petit pois style, rather than runner bean style).

To me at least (and my wife) previously frozen peas taste floury.

You’re over cooking them. They need just 1 minute in boiling salt water from frozen, not more than that.

In England peas are taken from field to frozen in less than 4 hours. It's a remarkable process, and it means people buying frozen peas are getting a very good product.

Fresh peas, on the other hand, cover a range from "I picked these myself just now" to "who knows when these came off the plant".

If you eat them raw, they're obviously different, but after cooking, they're virtually indistinguishable.

I can definitely tell. Previously frozen peas taste floury.

Remove flour from the recipy.

Modern blast chillers make amazing frozen products. It's a pretty impressive thing: a significant amount of the quality of the product is stored in the frozen product. It depends tremendously on how fast you chill, how thoroughly, etc.

I think the difference here isn't fresh vs frozen, but rather unprocessed vs processed.

Heston freezes solid whole pieces of potato, In-n-Out likely uses whole pieces of potato, seasoned. McDonald's likely mashes everything up, blends it all with preservatives and flavour enhancers and forms it into fry-shaped pieces.

McDonalds uses a potato cannon to make fries - they can mass produce them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfZLWEAiixo

They are also dipped in dextrose for colour and Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate to reduce the graying from freezing them.

https://www.cnet.com/news/former-mythbuster-goes-on-mcdonald...

Also depends on the location, over here apparently they're a lot more pure than in the US [0] to the extent that they're really not bad. They also claim they're also actually cut rather than shaped.

I think we generally get a better quality product from McD's, I did enjoy my In-n-Out experience when in Cali, but I can imagine it's a world different if the baseline fast food is poorer.

[0] http://www.cityam.com/207843/fry-hard-it-turns-out-mcdonalds...

Indeed, I am speculating about US McD's, not about UK. The quality here looks much better.

McD does not make their own french fries. There is a potato company, in Idaho I think, that puts it all together and freezes it for shipping.

The issue isn't so much that bagged fries are frozen, it's that they are often watered down and mixed with oil.

Have you tried ordering them well done?

In case anyone is wondering why that doesn't help the OP's issue... In order for the potatoes to be soft on the inside, you have to gelatinize the starch. That means bringing the temperature up to about 60C. However, this results in a gelatin-like block -- no matter how crunchy the outside is. If you want the inside to be fluffy you need to subsequently crystalize the gelatinized starch. You do that by cooling it down. If you've ever eaten cold potatoes or rice, you know how dry it seems -- that's the starch crystals. If you then heat it up again, these crystals re-gelatinize, providing a fluffy interior.

It's often good to go through the cycle more than once, which is why you see recipes for "triple fried" french fries. I tend to like to blanch in salted water, freeze, blanch in oil, freeze and then fry. This also dissolves some of the starch on the outside and provides more surface area for the oil to create crunchy bits. Yeah, it takes all day...

Never been to In-N-Out, so can't comment on what they do.

I worked the fryer at 5 guys and their method is to double fry them. I would drop the fries in for 3 minutes and take them out for 1 then drop them back in again for another minute. Crisps the outside and leaves inside fluffy.

We also soaked the potatoes for several hours to de starch them before frying

Huh interesting to know (as someone who thinks Five Guys makes the 2nd best fries I've ever had, first being a place local to Denver + Colorado Springs)

Other interesting thing about the five guys which you might already know is that their only proprietary ingredient is the buns. The “seasoned” fry seasoning we threw on there was straight up Kroger brand.

Didn't know that actually. Interesting. I knew the flavoring on the base fries was some sort of peanut oil (which is genius, not to mention delicious).

It is straight peanut oil. That was purchased in bulk though from Ben E. Keith IIRC

What's the name of the place in Denver? I always like finding good local places.

Crave. There's one in Highlands Ranch, one in Castle Rock, one at 16th Street Mall.

I'm sure you've read this, but here's further reading for anyone else interested in the science of french fries: http://aht.seriouseats.com/2010/05/the-burger-lab-how-to-mak...

Yes, then they are just stiffer and hotter. Well done is better but not great.

A fry should be crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside which is not gonna happen with taking a fresh potato and frying it. Freezing and blanching before hand make for better fries.

Part of the problem is that they cut them into shoestring. But another is that they only fry once -- if they did a second fry they'd be far better. I believe McDonalds and other chains pre-cook their fries before they arrive at the restaurant.

Unless their potatoes are magical or your description is inaccurate or incomplete, that doesn't sound like a recipe for very good fries.

The best fries I've ever had are usually frozen in between frying twice.

Yes the fries are not very good because they only fry them once. Same with five guys. They're a bit better if you ask for them well done though.

I love their burgers. But their fries. I had to give up. And I love fries! It was like cardboard, which felt so weird after being able to see the process...

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