The Secret for the Best, Crispiest Air Fryer Candy Potato Fries

Seek for “candy potato fries” on the r/unpopularopinion subreddit and you can be introduced with a protracted checklist of posts going again years through which folks proclaim their whole admiration or utter disgust for the meals. If there’s one takeaway from this, it is that these are clearly not unpopular opinions—candy potato fries are the definition of divisive. Whereas among the haters on the market won’t ever settle for a candy potato instead of the basic, many extra object to an actual drawback that plagues many a candy potato fry, which is that they are too usually not as crispy as a fry ought to be. If you chew into one thing anticipating it to reflect a French fry, however you’re left with a floppy, mushy, and soggy stick, there’s not a lot that can hold you coming again for extra. 

However what should you might make a candy potato fry that’s actually crispy on the skin and fluffy inside? Even higher, what should you might do it in an air fryer with out the mess and inconvenience of a spattering pot of oil?   After many rounds of testing, our take a look at kitchen colleague Marianne Williams found the key to air-fryer candy potato fries at house by creating the perfect coating to show the candy potatoes into crispy sticks with an ideal chew. Beneath, we clarify her steps for fulfillment. 

The Secret to Crispy Candy Potato Fry Success

In an effort to crack the code on crispy air-fried candy potato fries, Marianne knew the key would possibly lay in a coating of a starch like cornstarch together with a lightweight quantity of oil, in spite of everything, candy potatoes have considerably much less starch than a russet potato and even in an air fryer, it’s good to some oil for even browning and crisping.

To try it out, she began with batches that have been coated in a dusting of dry starches like cornstarch, rice flour, and potato flour, together with some oil. For a management, she examined these towards a batch that was seasoned merely with salt and pepper and a lightweight coating of oil. The starch coatings labored, although the potato starch batch burned and none created something near a long-lasting crispness.

Her subsequent spherical of assessments added sugar together with a mix of rice flour and cornstarch—the 2 profitable starches from the primary spherical of assessments. This labored even higher—the fries have been actually crisp—however the coating was uneven. Marianne first tried to resolve that drawback with cooking spray as an alternative of oil, however her breakthrough got here when she took the additional step of stirring the coating elements collectively first to type a slurry earlier than making use of them to fries. That, mixed with being considerate in regards to the thickness of the fries and the tactic of cooking them, are the keys to success.

For the Crispiest Air-Fryer Candy Potato Fries, Make a Slurry

As a substitute of including every ingredient individually to the minimize candy potatoes, the answer to essentially the most even, crispiest coating is to make a slurry first from cornstarch, white rice flour, sugar, salt, and impartial oil. The small quantity of sugar within the slurry helps obtain the perfect browning of the fries, and aids in each crisping and caramelization. This slurry makes it simpler to coat every fry evenly, which yields completely crispy outcomes that brown evenly throughout. 

Reduce the Potatoes 1/4 Inch Thick Sticks

The thickness of the potato sticks has a vital impression on how the fries end up. Too skinny and the fries are all crispness with no fluffy inside. Too thick and also you’re vulnerable to dropping the crispness to an expanse of moist inside. The candy spot we discovered is 1/4 inch thick, which produces what we contemplate to be the perfect stability of candy and tender inside and crispy shell.

You may choose to maintain the peel in your candy potatoes, however simply be conscious that they might create a more durable exterior on the fries. If you happen to do hold the pores and skin on, make certain to present them a superb scrub earlier than slicing. 

Get the Cooking Technique Proper

We discovered that for the perfect candy potato fry, it’s not sufficient to coat your potatoes with the starch slurry, pop them within the air fryer, and hope for the very best. We first needed to get the temperature proper—we went as excessive as 390ºF (199ºC), however that temperature proved too excessive. So we landed on 385°F (196ºC) for in regards to the first 13 minutes, adopted by a lowered temp of 375ºF (190ºC) for the remainder of the time—this offers sufficient of an preliminary blast of warmth to crisp the outside however is light sufficient to forestall scorching.

On the similar time, you may’t simply let the fries prepare dinner from begin to end with out tossing them—they will by no means crisp and brown evenly like that. As a substitute, it’s good to test on the fries each 5 to 6 minutes, shaking the basket and spraying the fries generously with cooking spray every time till they begin to brown. Proceed this technique of shaking the basket and spraying the fries with oil each 5 minutes till you’re left with crispy, well-browned candy potato fries. 

How one can Make Taste Variations

Whereas this recipe is for primary air fryer candy potato fries, you need to use it as a jumping-off level for an entire vary of taste variations. There aren’t any hard-and-fast guidelines right here, however spices like smoked paprika, mustard powder, black or white pepper, garlic powder, and even dried herbs would work nice to change up the flavour. Given a candy potato’s pure sweetness, heat spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and clove might additionally work.

In all instances, the seasonings will be whisked into the slurry to make sure a good software on the fries. Alternatively, the fries will be tossed within the seasonings after cooking, equivalent to in a lightweight coating of cinnamon sugar or a dusting of a barbecue-flavored dry rub.