The ideal French fry is golden brown in color, crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside; and it shouldn't be too oily. Many cooks know that the variety of potato is important (we recommend Russet Burbank or Maris Piper), but fewer people know that it’s also critical that a potato be neither too wet nor too dry. A potato that is too wet has a low solids content and will tend to have a waxy, soggy texture when fried. Potatoes that are too dry tend to be too hard and crunchy when fried. 

A simple method that sorts potatoes based on their specific gravity—an estimate of their solids content—can be used to find potatoes that are ideal for frying. Prepare two tubs of brine: the first should be nine percent salt relative to the weight of the water (8.25% salinity) and the other twelve percent salt relative to the weight of the water (10.7% salinity). Plunge each potato into the nine percent brine first; potatoes that aren't too wet should sink in this brine. Then drop these potatoes into the twelve percent brine; potatoes that aren't too dry should float in this brine.

Finding Perfect French Fry Potatoes

When done well, French fries are truly remarkable—crispy on the outside, light and fluffy on the inside. Here, we use a triple-cooking process made famous by British chef Heston Blumenthal. This approach to preparing French fries has set a new standard by which other fries are judged.

First, [carefully selected potatoes](https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/finding-perfect-french-fry-potatoes) are blanched until they are almost falling apart. This is the most important step to ensure the fries will have a fluffy interior and a crisp exterior. Then the potatoes are cooled and dried before before being parfried, which forms a protocrust. At this point it's possible to chill or freeze the thick-cut fries so that they can be stored until needed for serving. Finally, the partially prepared potatoes are fried until they have a golden-brown color, a remarkably crisp crust, and a delicate interior. 

We've made a few tweaks to the triple-cooking technique, including providing [an easy way to find the ideal potatoes for frying](https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/finding-perfect-french-fry-potatoes) and brining the potatoes in a solution that includes glucose and baking soda (to elevate the pH slightly) to ensure a deeper golden-brown crust. We do the brining step sous vide, both for convenience and to avoid having the potatoes entirely fall apart before they can be fried.

Thin-Cut French Fries

Preparing Crisp French Fries

Our beef stock is some of the darkest and richest we’ve ever tasted. As with traditional stocks, we roast the bones before cooking to deepen the flavor, and add cow’s feet, which break down during the low and slow cooking process and add body to the stock. (Substitute oxtail for a similar effect.) Using a SousVide Supreme gives us the ultimate temperature control, and unlike other beef stocks that simmer for eight hours or so, we like to cook ours for a full day when time allows.

Beef Stock

This classic gravy, made with the standard technique of whisking stock into roux, is punched up with sour cream, which adds a tangy flavor. Although optional, a sprinkling of MSG adds a bold umami taste that makes this gravy especially savory.

Beef Gravy

The squeak of a fresh cheese curd is as popular as it is elusive, it's gone after about a day after they're made. This makes obtaining squeaky cheese curds a matter of fortuitous timing. But with the help of an unstirred sous vide bath, such as one from SousVide Supreme, you don't have to delay gratifying your squeaky curd fix any longer. 

Perfecting the squeak, however, requires more than just fresh curds. The secret is a technique called cheddaring that forms a curd held together with long, elastic proteins. Cheese scientists have discovered that it's these fresh, elongated protein strands rubbing against the enamel of your teeth that is the real source of a cheese curd's squeak.

Squeaky Cheese Curds

The unofficial junk food of Canada, poutine—a dish of French fries, squeaky cheese curds and gravy—has multiple origin stories. Our favorite involves chef Fernand Lachance, who catered to a customer’s whims by adding cheese curds to a plate of French fries, then huffily pronounced it a “maudite poutine,” or “damned mess.” Nowadays, you can find anything from lobster poutine to chicken curry poutine, but the basic preparation remains the same: start with thin-cut fries, as crispy as you can get them; top with fresh cheese curds, and then drizzle a rich, savory gravy on top. A mess, and a damned good one, we say. 

Old-School Poutine

Skillful preparation and impeccable freshness are the keys to top-notch squeaky cheese curds. Perfecting the squeak requires that you create a mesh of long, elastic protein strands that will rub against the enamel of your teeth as you bite through one of these fresh-from-the-vat mild cheddar morsels.

Doing this starts by "ripening" milk. This involves warming the milk to around [c 33], adding a mesophilic bacterial culture for cheese making, and then allowing time for the bacteria to lower the pH. This in turn causes milk proteins to begin to denature so that adding rennet later will create a cohesive curd.

For store bought milk, most cheesemakers prefer to add calcium chloride to restore free calcium depleted during pasteurization and storage. Free calcium increases the interaction of dairy proteins for a stronger curd. But if you have access to raw milk, you can skip adding calcium chloride.

The second step is to mix rennet enzyme into the slightly acidified milk and let it stand until a curd forms that will break clean. This means that when a blade or stick is inserted into the curd at an angle and then removed, there is no curdled milk clinging to the object.

Once the curd has set, it needs to be cut, cooked, and then drained of whey. Experienced cheesemakers know that it's important to cut the curd into small, equally sized pieces so that the whey drains evenly. 

Cooking the curds at a slightly higher temperature causes the pH to fall further—to around 6.1 to 6.2. The exact cooking temperature and time will make a noticeable difference to the consistency of the cheese curds. Often, this is a key step that makes one cheese different from another.

Finally, the curds are then drained and held at a temperature between [c 37] to [c 42], which allows the strands of proteins to cross-link and knit the curd together. Doing this prepares the curds for the fifth step of "cheddaring" that is crucial to getting the squeak into your curds.

Cheddaring involves "ditching" the curd mass into slabs, stacking and flipping them, and repeating this stacking and flipping to expel whey trapped between grains of curd and developing the cohesive texture of squeaky cheese curds. Ultimately, this step makes the mass cohesive enough to "mill" into bite-sized chunks of curd.

The last step is salting the fresh curds. This not only makes them taste great, but actually keeps them from losing their squeak for about a day.

But after a day, the curds will inevitably lose their squeak. Even with salting, lactic acid bacteria in the cheese curds will continue to lower the pH, breaking down the long strands of proteins into smaller fragments, which don't have enough elastic strength to squeak under the bite of your teeth.

You can reinvigorate some of the squeakiness by gently reheating the curds—a burst of microwave is ideal for this. Heating helps proteins reform some of those important long strands that imbue the curd with squeak. But careful you don't over do it, go to far and you'll simply melt the curd.

Squeaky Cheese Curd Science

Preparing Old-School Poutine

Though the French canon does not technically categorize a demi-glace as a “mother sauce”—those sauces from which numerous others are derived—this sauce is, in fact, the springboard for many recipes and is commonly considered fundamental. A demi-glace, or “half-glaze,” is made by cooking a rich veal or beef stock down until its volume has reduced by upwards of 90%, which results in a viscous, highly flavorful liquid perfect for drizzling over meat, vegetables, burgers, or [link https://www.chefsteps.com/activities/new-school-poutine poutine]. But as the natural gelatin cooks down and creates that characteristic sticky, viscous texture; it also zaps a lot of the flavor. We solve this problem by adding confectioners’ glucose syrup to a sauce we reduce by 85%. It adds hardly any sweetness, and yields a sauce with just the right mouthfeel, without the stickiness.

Beef Demi-Glace

The Swiss are renowned as fondue makers. A novice might think that fondue is nothing more than grated cheese stirred into hot wine, but that is a recipe for a fondue gone wrong. More often than not the simmering wine ends up greasy while the gooey mess of cheese proteins settle to the bottom of the pot, where they promptly scorch. 

Whether preparing a thick, flavorful fondue or a smooth, flowing cheese sauce like our cheddar cheese sauce, experienced fondue makers know that it’s important to blend mature cheese with a smaller amount of youthful cheese. A blend of older and younger cheeses balances an appealing flavor with a pleasant texture.   

But the secret ingredient has always been a very dry, overly tart, and slightly fruity wine. Such a wine concentrates various fruit acids like tartaric, malic, and citric acid. And the salts of these acids—especially sodium citrate—are very effective at binding calcium in the cheese. This helps loosen bonds between the mesh of casein proteins, which in turn helps keep the entire mix of oil, water, and proteins emulsified.

No one knows how far back this kitchen wisdom goes, but in 1912 two Swiss food scientists were working on the problem of sterilizing cheese so that it could be stored, unrefrigerated, in hot climates. Up until this point, the results had been greasy failures; but these scientists discovered that adding the salt of citric acid (sodium citrate) to the cheese could prevent oiling-off. They had invented processed cheese. 

Independently, a few years later, an American did much the same thing with another salt, sodium hexametaphosphate. This discovery became the cornerstone of his namesake business: Kraft. 

Salts such as sodium citrate and sodium hexametaphosphate are known in the cheese industry as melting salts and replace the need for using a overly dry and tart wine. Their primary purpose is to swap sodium ions for calcium ions bound to the casein proteins in cheese. In doing so, they loosen these proteins and make them water-soluble.

In combination with heating and stirring, these melting salts improve the emulsifying ability of the proteins in the cheese. They also tend to shift the pH of the cheese upward, which improves the texture and stability of molten cheese. Overly acidic melted cheese is unstable, and has an unpleasant texture. Experienced cheese processors target a pH between 5.2 and 6.3 for the best results.

Cheddar Cheese Sauce

Our new school take on poutine replaces the classic squeaky cheese curds with a fast and easy to prepare molten cheddar cheese sauce. And a beef demi-glace takes the place of the traditional roux-thickened gravy.

New-School Poutine

Preparing New-School Poutine

Make the classic Canadian snack at home. We’ll show you how to prepare perfectly crispy fries, squeaky cheese curds, and delicious gravy, all from scratch. Serve classic Old-School Poutine, or try our modernist “new-school” version—printable recipes included.

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