Homemade French Fries

Homemade French Fries

• 4 large russet potatoes
• 1/4 c. peanut or canola oil (chosen for its high smoke point)
• generous sprinkle of salt

Preheat oven to 450.  
Cut the potatoes into 1/4” strips.  We found the thinness did a lot to prevent these from tasting like regular roasted potato chunks.
Toss the cut fries into a bowl of cold water as they are cut.  Let soak for 15 minutes, then drain away the cloudy starchy water.  Rinse very well, then dump the wet fries onto a dish towel and blot them dry.  If you were to roast too-wet fries they’d steam instead of roast, and be mushy in the end. Ew.
Toss the dried fries with the 1/4 c. oil, then spread them in a single layer – we used two large rimmed baking sheets, that we spread thinly with oil.  We’d recommend against using un-rimmed cookie sheets…you don’t want to start a grease fire!  Sprinkle generously with salt.
Roast for 15 minutes, then retrieve the baking sheets and toss the fries around with a spatula.  Return to the oven for another 15 minutes or so (you may need an extra 5 to 10 minutes -- one of our batches required more time, possibly because of the type of cookie sheet), until the fries are golden brown and blistered in spots.