This Secret Ingredient Takes Your Oven Fries to the Next Level
It can be quite a challenge to get oven fries genuinely nice and crispy. Fortunately, there are plenty of tips to be found (such as these oven-fry tips), but as far as I’m concerned, there’s only one that really works for the crispiest fries from the oven. It’s even scientifically proven; this trick really works and you only need one ingredient for it… And you probably already have it at home.
As Julie Andrews, aka Mary Poppins, sang: ‘Just a spoonful of sugaaaar…‘
How to Make Your Oven Fries Crispy with Sugar
You only need a tablespoon of sugar for half a kilo of potatoes. Mix the sugar and peeled potatoes in a bowl, then leave them to drain in a colander for half an hour. How does this ensure that the oven fries become nice and crispy? Through osmosis; just as salt absorbs moisture and makes the potatoes drier, sugar does more or less the same thing and makes the potatoes ‘sweat’. That’s why letting them drain for half an hour is so important: this allows the excess moisture to drip away.
Maillard Reaction
And why sugar instead of salt? That’s because of the so-called Maillard reaction. This chemical reaction was discovered in 1912 by Louis Camille Maillard and is easiest to explain as the reaction of carbohydrates (sugars) with amino acids (which are found in proteins, among other things), creating a brown, crispy layer.
When exposed to heat, sugars and proteins react with each other, and it’s precisely that golden-brown, crispy layer around the oven fries that you want to achieve. So next time you bake oven fries, simply add a little sugar!
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