Step 5: Ship & Cook in Restaurants When you're ready to order, the restaurants cook the fries for a third time, frying them in more oil.
Pat potatoes dry, then add them to a pot of preheated oil and fry for five minutes. Allow the potatoes to cool before frying them a second time. Let cook until golden brown, then blot with a paper towel and salt before serving. Double-frying guarantees a wonderful crunch that will keep you coming back for more.
They're flash frozen before they get to the store
Before being packaged, the fries are dried, partially cooked and flash frozen. This maintains the color and crunch. They're then sent out to McDonald's franchises around the country.
Theory #1: "The first fry gets the outside to create a water tight barrier. That way, when you fry them the second time, they stay moist." Or, Theory #2: "The first fry cooks them through to the center—if you skipped that step, your fries would brown on the outside, but still be raw in the middle."
Reheating McDonald's fries to retain that crispy, delicious texture can be tricky. If you pop them in the microwave, you'll end up with soggy, limp fries.
Microwaving is the quickest way to reheat McDonald's french fries, but be forewarned—the fries will still be soft. This is not necessarily a bad thing!
You can reheat french fries in a microwave, but they will turn out limp and not crisp. To do it, put them on a microwave-safe plate and microwave for 20-30 seconds. If not warmed to your liking, cook longer, checking on them in 30 second increments.
"It's because McDonald's cooks their fries with beef flavoring mixed within their vegetable oil," divulged the content creator.
“It's because McDonald's cooks [its] fries with beef flavouring mixed within their vegetable oil,” Jordan said. “So that's why the fries taste so good, but also so different from everybody else's.”
The FDA says overcooked, crispy or burnt french fries are the ones most likely to have higher levels of acrylamide. Go for the golden yellow fries, and avoid the brown ones. Also, don't eat burnt toast. Same concept here: The dark brown or black areas on a piece of toast are more likely to contain acrylamide.
That's why we use potato varieties like Russet Burbank, Innovator and Russet Ranger. Our tomatoes are picked straight from the vine.
Here's the Secret…
Fortunately, the solution is pretty simple. Just ask for fries without salt! “If you order a burger or fries always ask them without salt or the seasoning on the burger,” a former McDonald's employee wrote on Reddit. “They will have to make them fresh since they always put each on them.”
Overcooking or undercooking will result in soggy fries or hard/hollow fries that will not hold well. Remove basket to drain excess oil from product.
Potatoes are full of starch, and when the starch is hydrated, it fluffs up. When it's dehydrated, they get grainy and soggy. The problem with reheating french fries, then, isn't about heat — it's about moisture.
As a general rule, frozen french fries are fried before being frozen. In fact, they have also been blanched (to increase their shelf life) and then fried in oil (to make them crispy & quick to cook). Baking at home is simply to reheat them.
Not only do fried foods often contain extra sugar and sodium to make them dangerously tasty, but they also soak up some of the fat from the oil they're cooked in. That oil likely contains trans fats, an especially unhealthy kind of fat that's cheap to make and helps food last a long time.
On McDonald's website, the chain says: "When our suppliers partially fry our cut potatoes, they use an oil blend that contains beef flavoring. This ensures the great-tasting and recognizable flavor we all love from our World Famous Fries."
According to Matt Hartings, an assistant professor of chemistry at American University in Washington, D.C., One of the main reasons that French fries lose their appeal when cold is that their texture changes. Potatoes are filled with starch, Hartings said. Starches taste good when they are “hydrated,” he said.
The taste will be familiar to Americans 40 and older who visited fast-food restaurants before 1990, the year McDonald's stopped using animal lard to cook its popular fries.
In 1990, the company announced that they would replace the beef tallow with 100 percent vegetable oil. After the announcement, McDonald's stock fell 8.3 percent. The new fry didn't stack up. As it turns out, the beef tallow had added more than just cholesterol to the signature french fry.
The cooked Fries will therefore end up being approximately 86% potato - the remaining 14% being vegetable oil.
You can, but it is not ideal. All French fries, including McDonald's, suck the 'second' time around. Most people will try to heat them in a microwave or, possibly, an oven or toaster oven.
French fries will only be good for a few days in the fridge; any longer than that, and they'll start to lose their texture and become crumbly. The moral of the story: Be sure to reheat and eat your leftover french fries in a timely manner!
It takes 4 minutes at 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177C) to air fry leftover McDonald's burger. There's no need to flip the burger.