Burgers and Fries
This post is dedicated to the events staff at Cody's Books. Because when Melissa, who is part of that group, went to an all-hands meeting she happened to mention that I was making hamburgers and fries, and everyone wanted to know how I was doing them.
So here y'all go. First, the burgers, which were only complicated because of our lack of a grill. To get around this, I heated up a cast-iron skillet very hot and used that, which worked reasonably well. As condiments, we had ketchup, the aioli I made for last week's dinner (see below), tomatoes, lettuce, raw onion, and a Comté cheese, similar to a Gruyère. I thought about making my own buns, but the only recipe I could find in my cookbook library involved my sourdough starter and took three days. Funny, you would think people would be into making their own buns.
The fries were more laborious. I used the Cook's Illustrated recipe from a number of years ago which involves more steps than you would imagine possible for french fries. One of the things I love about the magazine is that they're not afraid to include extra work if they think it warrants it. Once you've cut the potato into fries, put them in a bowl and run water into the bowl until it all runs clear; this gets rid of excess starch. Then fill the bowl with water again, and throw in a dozen ice cubes. Put the whole thing in the fridge for half an hour (at least). This allows the fries to cook more evenly when you dump them in the hot oil, since the interior will get a chance to get cooked before the exterior becomes too crisp.
The rest of the technique involves frying the fries twice. For the first fry, heat some oil (I used corn oil; they recommend peanut with bacon drippings but found corn to be very good as well) to 325. Remove the potatoes from the fridge, drain them, and pat them dry ("with a tea towel" says the recipe quaintly; I used a clean dish cloth). Put about half the fries into the oil, cook until the fries begin to yellow and are floppy. Drain on a paper bag. Let the oil come back to 325 and throw in the second batch. Drain those on a separate paper bag. Let sit on bag for 10 minutes, at least, or up to 2 hours.
Finally, reheat the oil to 375, dump in half the fries and fry until golden-brown. Put these fries into a paper bag (not on, and definitely use a slotted spoon or "spider" to get the fries out). Do the second batch, and add them to the paper bag. Dump in as much salt as you like, plus some pepper, and shake the paper bag to get the fries well-seasoned. Fend off the ravening hordes until you're ready to serve.
I thought about accompanying the dinner with beer. But instead we opted for Ridge's 1998 Jimsomare Zinfandel, one of the wines we acquired when we were part of their Advance Tasting Program club. A very fruity wine, but also an alcoholic one, clocking in at 15.1% alcohol.
For dessert, I served slices of canteloupe, accompanied by a Quarts de Chaume dessert wine from the Loire valley. A nice wine, but I think I served it too cold; the flavor was very muted.
So that's how to spend way too much time making burgers and fries. They were delicious, however, and well worth the work.
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