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Post by clarencebunsen on Jul 16, 2011 21:25:35 GMT -5
Ultrasonic French FriesSmooth and crispy By W. Wayt Gibbs and Nathan Myhrvold | July 16, 2011 
It’s one of the most commonly consumed snacks in the Western world and has been made in one form or another for at least three centuries, so you might think nothing new could come of the humble french fry. But British chef Heston Blumenthal put paid to that notion years ago. He and his research chef Chris Young came up with a triple-cooked “chip” with a taste and texture that blow away anything you will find at a burger joint. Other chefs have raised the bar further. Nils Norén and Dave Arnold of the French Culinary Institute in New York City, building on work by a Polish researcher, figured out how to improve the texture inside fries by treating the potatoes with an enzyme. The chemical helps break apart the pectin in the fries, yielding a smoother mouthfeel.
Inspired by these heroic efforts, Maxime Bilet, Johnny Zhu and the other research chefs (including Young) at our culinary lab in Bellevue, Wash., explored a variety of techniques for doing better still. The winning combination is simple in its ingredients but quite fancy in its execution. The potato batons are vacuum-sealed with 2 percent salt brine in bags to keep them intact during boiling. They are then bombarded with intense sound waves from the same device that dentists and jewelers use. A lengthy ultrasound treatment at 40 kilohertz causes the surface of each fry to crack and blister with myriad tiny bubbles and fissures.
www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=ultrasonic-french-fries
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Post by Ralph on Jul 17, 2011 0:43:29 GMT -5
Still......nothing beats french fried sweet taters!!!  |
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Post by clarencebunsen on Jul 17, 2011 5:12:46 GMT -5
That's true, but I wonder what could be done if a similar technological effort was made on them.
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Post by virgilgal on Jul 17, 2011 11:41:17 GMT -5
OMG; makes my mouth water! The perfect fry is not an easy accomplishment! It's one of my great weaknesses and I am trying to perfect the perfectly browned, crispy, lower fat steak fry cooked in the oven... Always hit or miss but when they come out right there is nothing better in the world! I love McD's fries and always order them w/o salt so that they have to make a fresh batch and they are really hot still. I'm not so sure about the ultrasound concept but the finished product sounds exquisite!
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Post by dgriffin on Jul 17, 2011 19:43:49 GMT -5
So THAT'S what my little brother was practicing to be ... a Research Chef! In the summer before fifth grade he'd toast two slices of bread and slather on the peanut butter while frying baloney in a pan. Just before plopping on the top slice of his sandwich, he would carefully lay four large potato chips down on the baloney and 4 slices of hard boiled egg. He then set Mom's cookbook on top of the assembled sandwich, placed his hands on the cover and pressed down with his entire upper body weight. Removing the cookbook and wiping it clean on his jeans, the resulting mess was squared off with a butter knife and wrapped in paper towels to keep it from leaking out the bottom. He carried his creation out on the back porch and enjoyed a leisurely summer vacation lunch of what he called his Four Eyes Sandwich. He's still alive today, but has high cholesterol.
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Post by Clipper on Jul 17, 2011 20:32:57 GMT -5
Gee Dave did your brother go on to invent the Panini press?
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Post by virgilgal on Jul 19, 2011 11:17:36 GMT -5
Dave, that sandwich reminds me of an old Johnny Depp movie; Benny and Joon. Johnny made grilled cheese sandwiches with a hot iron! The visual for your brother's sandwich is absolutely breathtaking!
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Post by dgriffin on Jul 19, 2011 17:17:53 GMT -5
I did toasted cheese with an iron many years ago in college. Not very satisfactory since the iron never got hot enough!  Took a while to get the burned particles of bread off the iron, too. |
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Post by bobbbiez on Jul 19, 2011 18:57:51 GMT -5
I did toasted cheese with an iron many years ago in college. Not very satisfactory since the iron never got hot enough! Took a while to get the burned particles of bread off the iron, too. Dave, that's not as bad as when I was little and tried to make a grilled cheese sandwich in the toaster and almost burned my parents house up.  |
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Post by Clipper on Jul 19, 2011 19:02:21 GMT -5
I tried to cook a Rich Plan hamburger patty in the toaster once. It resulted in lots of smoke, and grease running across the countertop and down the cupboard door. And to think I didn't want to use a frying pan because of the work involved in washing the pan. I think I was about 10 at the time. A regular boy genius that thought I had come up with a real innovative way to cook a snack. |
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Post by jamesbreadfrombond on Jul 20, 2011 7:45:58 GMT -5
...... ahhhhhh ... the Rich Plan !!!!!!!!
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Post by bobbbiez on Jul 20, 2011 14:19:37 GMT -5
...........and who didn't have them back then? Great plan!
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Post by dgriffin on Jul 20, 2011 14:37:30 GMT -5
I heard the Rich Plan was expensive, unless you ordinarily ate a lot of meat. Friends had it. They're not still around, are they? LATER: Yup, they are: www.richplanfoodsinc.com/ |
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Post by Clipper on Jul 20, 2011 14:58:31 GMT -5
I looked into it once in the 70's, and I thought it was nothing more than a way for people to finance groceries over a period of several months. Financing groceries never seemed like a good idea to me. Same goes for those that put groceries on a credit card when they know they cannot pay the full balance at the end of the month.
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Post by bobbbiez on Jul 20, 2011 22:20:01 GMT -5
Hey, that's how I bought my very first freezer with their plan. Their meats and other products were very good and must living around us in N.Utica used their plan at that time. Most of us were young couples with kids and the easy financing worked well for us.
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