Belgian Fries & Beer

There is no food in the world better than properly-cooked Belgian fries. Not lobster rolls, not charcoal oven-fired pizza, not roasted sweet corn, not carved turkey sandwiches, not even Zankou's chicken tarna wrap which, just the other day, I called my perfect meal. Nope. Belgian fries, when done properly, are as good as it gets. 

Making them at home has always been tough for me. I can't explain why. Maybe I try too hard to make them perfect. I don't know. A couple times I have come close to making my ideal fry, but most of the time I make them and remember the fries I've had at Wurstkuche or Pommes Frites and I think Damn, mine aren't as good.

The other day I decided to give them another try, my first attempt in a couple years. I sliced up several small Russet potatoes with a plastic, uniform-slicing gadget that had been buried in a drawer for more than half a decade. I soaked the fries in water for a couple hours, drained them and rinsed them off.

After making sure the potatoes were dry (an important step), I cooked them, a handful at a time, in a pot of oil close to 325 degrees. I didn't time each batch, I simply pulled them out when they looked ready, but I would guess each batch cooked for about six minutes.

This is what they look like when they come out of the oil the first time: off-white, mostly limp pieces of potato. You can eat them but they taste mostly of slightly-mealy, bland fries.

A hour later I cranked up the heat, closer to 400 degrees, and dropped the potatoes back in for a couple minutes.

They turn a more golden brown and, if you do it correctly, get crispy on the outside. This, unfortunately, was not my best attempt: only about a quarter of the fries were as crispy as I like them. But those well-done fries were perfect.

The only thing I like almost as much as eating Belgian fries is preparing sauces for them. I had an idea for a honey mustard: using the wasabi-sake mustard I got a couple weeks back. I didn't measure the portions, I did it mostly to taste, but I imagine my initial mix was roughly 3/5 mayonnaise to 2/5 mustard. I then drizzled in about a tablespoon of honey.

I intended to make a green onion-black pepper mustard sauce, but I screwed it up and ended up making a green onion-mustard barbecue sauce. It was okay but not as good as I was hoping for. I also used a blue cheese sauce, into which I drizzled a touch of Tabasco sauce. But my honey mustard creation was certainly the star of the show.

And, of course, nothing goes better with Belgian fries than a cold beer. I wish I liked Belgian beer; it would be nice to open one with these fries, but I can count on one hand the number of Belgian beers I have ever enjoyed. Instead I opted for a Sierra Nevada Torpedo: a super-hoppy, citrus-tinged IPA. It's certainly not my favorite of the Sierra Nevada stable, but then again they don't make a bad beer.