My Hunt for the Original McDonald’s French-Fry Recipe
atlasobscura.com
atlasobscura.com
The taste is incredible and there's really nothing like it, but home cooks looking to experiment would be well advised to do so outside.
Indeed I fully agree with the article, currently I find McDonald to be a really, really shitty burger, only reason to still buy it sometimes is because they are good at "service" (ie: they stay open when other restaurants are closed, aren't too expensive, and the ingredients quality is reasonable).
The fries is well, a whole another subject.
I did tried making fries at home using commercial frozen fries, and pork fat, and the result was really, really, really good, but it also make a huge mess in the kitchen, so my wife refuses to ever do it again, but pork fat is obviously much superior than vegetable oil for frying in general (not just deep frying).
A restaurant that have good (but not great) fries suggested cotton oil, but that one is very hard to find, only places I found selling it were selling it to restaurants, thus it only came packaged in huge tubs with 100 USD worth of oil, and that is obviously ridiculous in a home setting.
They started serving quarter pounder burgers made-to-order a year or two ago, and if your local McD's does it properly (instead of breaking rules and making them in advance and letting them sit around), you'll get a burger that's medium on the inside, and incredibly juicy and flavorful.
It's not Shake Shack, but it's still miles better than any burger they ever sold in the past. Absolutely nothing shitty about it at all anymore. I was astonished -- never once in my life did I think I'd actually enjoy the beef in a McD's burger.
The quarter-pounder here is nowhere near 1/4 of a pound. (seemly they use a 0.2 pound one instead. or 1/5 of a pound)
I actually paid attention last time I went, in more than one store, I ordered quarter pounder and kept watching the drawer, not only they used the drawer, but the burger that went into quarter pounder is same that went into all other products.
Maybe you have a "bad" McD's by you... but their regular hamburgers are much, much smaller in diameter (and thinner). A quarter pounder burger comes to the edge of the bun. If they used a regular burger, it would be so small it would be invisible when served, you wouldn't see it at all until biting in.
Legally, a quarter pounder is always 1/4 lb before cooking. It's always significantly less when served because of the water and fat it loses while cooking.
So if you think you're getting a 0.2 lb burger cooked, it's still a real quarter pounder. Their regular hamburger/cheeseburger is waaay less than 0.2 lb. If you want a serious amount of meat, that's what a double quarter pounder is for.
I also like to check out McDonald's in different countries. Sometimes in Japan you can get an Idaho burger, which has a hashbrown patty. And sometimes they have an "adult creampie" dessert (yikes). Indian McDonald's has masala chicken and veggie burgers, and Israeli McDonald's has $15 giant gourmet burgers.
The original beef tallow fryer oil was called Formula 47. It came in boxes as it was solid at room temperature; one box would basically fill an empty fryer.
Whole potatoes were not processed in store at that time. The fries came already cut and frozen, and were cooked frozen. As such, nobody at the store really knew the recipe. You filled a basket with frozen fries, dropped it into the fryer, hit a timer button, and in about 3 or 4 minutes they were done. They were dumped into a holding station and salted with ordinary table salt. They could sit in the holding station for up to 10 minutes before they were supposed to be thrown away.
I did watch a training video about how they were produced, which involved (as I recall) selecting potatoes of a specific size and moisture content specification, cutting, rinsing, blanching, then flash-freezing.
[0] http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/19-mcdonalds-broke-my...
They really are amazing: about 1cm square in cross section crunchy and crispy on the outside, but not overly so, light, fluffy, and the perfect balance of dry/moist inside. Never oily, always cooked fresh, and without exception, delicious. Though I will confess that I never got behind putting Mayo on top.
Anybody fooling around trying to replicate the original McDonalds recipe is shooting for the wrong target. Shoestring fries don't have the inside/outside texture contrast that makes for fry perfection.
I love them topped with mayo but some places have a curry option that is even better!
Although checking out the Google Reviews before a visit filtering by the Belgian names of the reviewers' is generally a good enough measure to go by.
But please, do try them with mayo!
It's astonishing to me that mayo is not the default dipping sauce for fries in the US, considering mayo is put on everything in the US.
Mayo with hot sauce is my favorite fry dip by a staggering margin.
On the rare occasions I make fries at home, I like to mix some curry powder into mayo for dipping, a taste I acquired on a trip to Italy.
I mean don't get me wrong, at home we have a fryer and we make the odd load of homemade chips as well and they are the tits, but it's not the same.
We used to be able to get solid blocks of frying fat, probably was beef tallow or something like that, but it's all saturated fats (I believe) and bad for one's health and the like. According to the wisdom of the time anyway; I don't know, there may have been some lobby behind it (like how the wheat lobby made fat the boogeyman, and now someone is making the sugar / carb industry look bad).
A lot of the things humans put in their mouths just aren't safe long term. We're pretty good at making suboptimal long-term choices.
Without being able to run experiments on real human bodies over full life spans like I suggest here [1], it's impossible to quantify.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25235013 (I advocate for this rather frequently)
You can get calories from protein, fats and carbs, so choose a balance diet.
“Life ain’t worth a dime without a little colesterol” Leah Chase
Small amounts of any of those "bad" things is just fine. The problem is that many people have come to see them as the core of their diet, with vegetables as an unpleasant supplement to be minimized. Learn to cook vegetables well, and vast frontiers of interesting, delicious food open up.
Indian food is an excellent starting point[1], for either vegetarian or vegan eating. For that matter most authentic Asian cuisines are heavy on the vegetables, with small amounts of meat for flavor, which is also a very healthy way to eat (especially if you substitute whole grains for the white rice).
Plenty of other cultures have thrived on vegetable-based diets. It's really not that difficult. You just need to get over the notion that "food" consists of a meat main dish, a starch, and a desultory, obligatory vegetable side.
[1] https://www.priyakrishna.me/indianish is a current favorite of mine.
Think of a dish composed mainly of "vegetables, whole grains, and beans" with minimal carbs and even more minimal butter/oil. What is the recipe? Then, consider if it tastes good - as good or better than similar recipes where more carbs and oil is used. I've been cooking a variety of meat and vegetarian dishes of various cuisines for years and I know of no such dish I'd want to eat with regularity. Brown rice, steamed chicken breast, and cauliflower just doesn't cut it for my palette, and I suspect the same for the majority of people who know how good a Sunday roast or pizza tastes.
Controlling total calories is important in weight loss, and that's a matter of portion control. A diet with a good proportion of fat will be fairly satisfying; you just need to limit the total amount of it. That'll still leave you a little hungry. There's no magic that makes calorie deficit pleasant. Tweaking the ratios can make it less unpleasant, a matter of personal taste.
It doesn't need to be junk. You don't even necesarily need a calorie deficit, if you're happy with your weight. There exist good vegetarian and vegan diets with appropriate amounts of fat and appropriate total calories, and they don't at all resemble "brown rice, steamed chicken breast, and cauliflower".
If carbs are bad, you can't have those.
The problem is that some foods have nothing but carbs, and if you eat a lot of those, you'll either consume too many calories overall or fail to get necessary nutrients. So eat fewer white, starchy foods like potatoes, and more leafy foods, squashes, and other colorful foods.
Similarly, whole grains bring a lot of vitamins and fiber, while refined grains like white rice are reduced to just the starch. It's just fine that those whole grains also have carbs in them. That's actually a good thing, becuase you do need calories for energy. You just need more than that.
Most people can get away with eating whatever they want with a modest amount of rigorous exercise each day. Granted, they still need to control their food intake and ensure they are getting required nutrients, but that's pretty straightforward.
There's no disputing taste.
So I'm glad you like the Belgian fries. What I've always learned to be key is that we fry our cut potatoes twice: once at 140°C, wait for them to cool down, and once at 175-180°C. Then you add salt, that's it.
And the mayo: I don't think many people like it like that when they eat fries at home, but it's easy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But, in any other situation if mayo is involved I'm grossed out to the point of puking. Even when I just smell the mayo (from the same brand) someone is putting on their plate of vegetables or whatever.
FWIW, they're brined in a solution containing sugar, it's not like there's sugar sprinkled on them. Very little of it makes it into the final product and in my experience brined fries aren't perceptibly sweet in an obvious way. It assists with browning and a crunchy exterior.
There are some other variations, like blanching the potatoes with vinegar, or freezing the potatoes overnight between frying. The idea is to make them crispy on the outside and soft on the inside.
There's no wrong target. Some people enjoy deep-dish pizza. It kinda baffles me but I wouldn't be telling them that they're "shooting for the wrong target" if they tried to replicate this particular recipe because that's what they like.
I do think that entirely too few people in the US have ever tried anything other than fries of smaller cross section and that properly cooked Belgian style fries would be a revelation for a great number of people over here.
Besides, the whole premise of TFA is based on snobbery and a bit of nostalgia. They're recreating the old McDonalds fries, not the new because of the perceived superiority of the old ones, after all.
I only argue that if you're going to be a snob, you should at least be a well-informed snob, though perhaps my intended humor came across poorly over the internet.
Imagine reading an article written by somebody who has never tried deep dish pizza (or any other kind) writing about their quest to replicate an old Dominos crust recipe.
Unless the American eats only at fast food restaurants (which is probably a decent sized group), then I can't imagine that to be true. There are fries with many difference cross section sizes even in a regular grocery freezer aisle.
And many restaurants frequently serve fries ranging from skinny shoestring to full on "potato logs" that are easily an inch diameter cross section.
That's the thing about America. Somebody from every country is here, making their traditional foods or riffing on them with new ingredients and processes. I can go downtown and try Ethiopian, two British pubs, two Vietnamese, French (high and low styles), three Indian places, 4 Thai, 6 kinds of Mexican. All run by folks from those places.
Plenty of exceptions exist, but tend to be very local.
[1]: He expressed it as a threat.
[2]: I think the hope that we'd have a taco truck on every corner was probably more unifying than anything else that's happened or been done by anyone in the US since.
PS: Hot isn’t a complex flavor it’s exactly what’s left over after you extract the complexity from many ethnic dishes.
American Thai food as generally consumed is rapidly becoming it’s own thing that’s somewhat related to actual Thai food. Like California rolls or hotdogs what’s left over after the free market has it’s say is a very different thing.
And that's what we're seeing now with Thai food. As the generations get further and further removed from the original immigrants, the cuisine continues to evolve in its own direction. And why shouldn't it?
It's also worth remembering that restaurants are not always (and in fact, rarely are) representative of the actual local cuisines. There's still heavy emphasis on the good ol' home cooked meal (as hard as frozen food chains might try to supplant home cooking), and that's where you see both the preservation of tradition and the proliferation of experimentation, marketability and profit be damned. Indeed, looking at these home cooked meals, it becomes readily evident that the oft-denigrated Chinese holes-in-the-wall and small town pizzerias are far closer to authenticity than the fancy gastropubs and fusion restaurants of snobbish preference; authentic cuisine puts form over function, and heartiness over presentation. Authenticity comes from humility and self-awareness; it doesn't need to try to impress anyone's palate.
I stand by my original point that you can’t call something authentic X after you significantly later what it is. Small town pizzerias and snobbish restaurants are both very distinct from classic Italian food.
That said, if you go to Italy today they very much cater to tourists expecting food their familiar with. Further, while the tomato was only imported in the 16th century, that’s plenty far back to confuse the issue.
So does that make it "not Italian"? It was first-generation cooks that made it. Certainly not "Traditional Italian" but so what?
So we're gonna ask the next time.
Everything tastes better when you're on vacation. Less stress. Heightened senses It's science.
They absolutely do have the contrast, where are you getting your shoestring fries?! :P
The only thing is, shoestring fries need to be eaten within ~10 minutes of being fried, before they dry out. Maybe you let yours sit around too long, or get them from somewhere that does.
Thicker fries are too close to baked potatoes for me. :( I want golden cripsy goodness!
Thankfully there are 100 types of fries because people like 100 types of things. :)
Their fries, these days, are a shadow of the greasy pleasure sticks of olden days.
Same with their Apple pies. Anyone remember their originals, that were basically balls of fusion fire, cooked in lard, and came with a defibrillator?
Instant noodles are also parfried, which is how they cook so quickly.
There's a quote from one of the most significant works of Polish literature (Dziady - Forefathers' Eve), which goes more or less like this(source: Wikipedia - doesn't appear to be taken from the official translation):
Our nation is like lava. On the top it is hard and hideous, but its internal fire cannot be extinguished even in one hundred years of coldness. So let's spit on the crust and go down, to the profundity!
Replace "nation" with "apple pie" and it makes for an accurate description.
And some international locations of McDonald's also still sell their pies fried.
As to the fries- they pretty much have to be pre-cooked, since the potatoes are pureed and "fries" are reformed through a play-doh style extrusion. Pre-cooking keeps them from falling back apart.
[1]: https://www.mashed.com/159904/this-is-how-mcdonalds-french-f...
Their original awesome ones had been replaced with ones that looked like and tasted like cardboard for years... but at least for the past couple years they've had a new recipe that's seriously delicious. It's not the old deep-fried heart attack, but it's a light fluffy pastry and the inside actually tastes like it's made of real apples!
From Wordpanda:
adjective. craveability (especially of a food) having qualities that engender an intense desire for more: All too often, salt, sugar, fat, and “crunch” make a food craveable
[0] https://wordpanda.net/definition/craveability
Anyone else addicted to them? I can't get enough of them. They are tailor-made to be rabidly consumed!
The author's recipe does suggest doing exactly that:
Beef Tallow French Fries Adapted From “McMenu: Do-It-Yourself McDonald’s Restaurant Recipes” Yields two medium-sized orders of fries.
2 large russet potatoes
¼ cup white sugar
2 tablespoons white corn syrup (Karo)
1–2 cups hot water
6 cups Crisco shortening
¼ cup beef tallow
Salt to taste
1. Peel the potatoes and cut them into shoestrings. They should be about ¼ inch x ¼ inch in thickness and about 4 inches to 6 inches long.
2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the sugar, corn syrup, and hot water. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Place the potatoes into the bowl of the sugar-water and refrigerate for 30 minutes.
3. While they’re soaking, pack the shortening into a deep-fryer. If you don’t have a deep-fryer, any sauce pot or dutch oven will suffice as long as you have an appropriate thermometer. Heat on the highest setting until the shortening has liquefied and reads between 375° and 400° F.
4. Drain the potatoes then dump them into the fryer (be careful, it will be ferocious). Nudge them around to make sure they don’t stick to one another. After 1 to 1 ½ minutes, transfer the potatoes to a paper towel–lined plate. Let them cool 8 to 10 minutes in the refrigerator.
5. While they’re cooling, add the beef tallow to the hot shortening and bring temperature back to between 375° and 400° F.
6. Add the potatoes and deep-fry again for 5 to 7 minutes or until golden brown. Again, nudge lightly to keep them from becoming one mega-fry. Remove and place them in a large bowl, sprinkling generously with salt and tossing to mix the salt evenly. Serve hot and enjoy.
The fries need to be cooked for a specific time(well duh, but the sweet spot is less than a dozen seconds). They also cook better in small batches. The times are off for full baskets and perhaps they don't cook well like that at all; you want the fries to be "swimming" on the basket.
Problem is the same as every fast food restro; the employees get antsy and don't want to wait for them to cook all the way. Managers and employees alike think(or don't think TBH) the customer would rather have their meal 20s sooner with undercooked fries. Same reason sandwich shops pull the sandwich before it has been properly toasted.
When I was younger and frequented these places I used to ask them for "..fresh fries, cooked the full time. I don't mind waiting". Go inside, the drive-through has bad quality incentives(wait time).
https://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/news/20100420/high-sugar...
[0] - http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/19-mcdonalds-broke-my...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.food.com/amp/recipe/mc-dona...
The AMP link is slower, adds tracking, gives Google just a wee bit more control over the internet, doesn't provide as much SEO credit, and hurts recognition of the "food.com" brand.
https://www.food.com/recipe/mc-donalds-classic-french-fries-...
I just checked and New Coke was available as part of a Stranger Things campaign, only in limited cities though.
HFCS is not "Kosher for Passover", so as soon as the Passover season rolls around, you can get the original recipe as long as the bottling plant is one that carries a supervision. I know aficionados that stock up every year.
The reason HFCS took off in the U.S. is the high tariffs applied to sugar imports to protect the domestic sugar manufacturers. Without that market distortion in place, sugar is probably cheaper than HFCS.
Gizmodo has also reported on it: https://gizmodo.com/mexican-coke-is-ditching-cane-sugar-for-...
Apparently HFCS is cheaper in Mexico too. I'm far from an expert on this, just going with what these articles and videos are saying.
Especially subsidies to US "Grade C" Corn serve to keep a lot of corn derivatives incredibly cheap (HFCS, corn ethanol, fatty cattle feed stock filler, etc), because "Grade C" (aka "US Standard Corn") isn't typically considered useful for much more than its derivatives but there is a massive trade in it because of how cheap that corn is.
They switched because of the "Pepsi challenge". Pepsi beat coke at taste test booths.
New Coke was Diet Coke with HFCS instead of aspartame. New Coke beat both Pepsi and Old Coke at taste test booths.
Turns out it was because when you're just doing a shot of cola people pick the sweeter one. When there's a whole can tastes differ.
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