The One Tool You Need To Achieve Perfect Crinkle Cut Fries
We've written at length about 25 different types of french fries, from classic to extravagant. Crinkle cut fries are certainly an iconic shape served by famous fast food restaurants like Shake Shack and Raising Canes, not to mention their popularity as a frozen product to pop in the oven or air fryer for an after school snack. The gastronomic purpose of crinkle cut fries is twofold; they provide unparalleled crispiness with more surface area exposed to hot oil while its crevices effectively trap and retain ketchup or any other options from this list of underrated fry dipping sauces. You can easily create their namesake shape yourself with the help of a specialized kitchen tool: the crinkle cutter.
An appropriate name for the wavy cut it instills in potatoes, many crinkle cutters you'll find on Amazon, like this HIC Kitchen wave slicer and this Joie crinkle cutter, feature a long, tall, wavy blade connected to a dome shaped handle running across its length. The crinkle cutter is essentially a cookie cutter for vegetables, giving you a firm grip and more momentum from above to put all of your weight into a clean slice through an otherwise hard raw potato. That said, crinkle cutters also come in the shape of a conventional butcher knife, like this highly rated stainless steel Hammer Iron Alley crinkle knife. Both styles feature an incredibly sharp blade and ample cutting power to get through even the toughest root vegetables.
How to use the crinkle cutter
Using the crinkle cutter is as simple as using any knife to cut vegetables. Start by peeling a russet or sweet potato, then cut it in half hamburger-style. Place each half of the potato cut-side down so that you have a long dome-shape to slice into. Use the crinkle cutter to make downward slices a half-inch apart. Then, you can turn the potato so that the cut marks are horizontal and you can make the same half-inch distance slices you made the first time around. You're essentially making even, perpendicular cuts in the potato halves like a lattice to form the french fries. You can then place your freshly cut fries in cold water to rid them of excess starch before frying them.
Depending on how you make your fries, there are other tools you need to achieve the crispiest outcome. Deep frying is, of course, the original method for crinkle cut fries still used by restaurants and manufacturers alike. If you decide to deep fry, a slotted spoon and frying thermometer are both essential to the precision involved in maintaining a certain heat and scooping out the fries at just the right moment. Another revolutionary tool that more and more cooks are buying is an air fryer. One of the air fryer's best uses is imparting a deep-fried crunch to french fries without actually frying at all. It'll certainly save you the oil and mess of deep frying.