YJL

Not sure what it should be called, definitely not bread. It smells really good when I went to take it out of oven. I was expecting to make a bread, but when I began to use oil to prevent it from sticking to bowl for first rise, the course has shifted unknowingly. I must have used too much oil.



It doesn't look really good to me. But when I bit into it, oh, that's yummy. After the first rise, I added some raisins to the dough. Before sent to oven, I quartered a few cherry tomato and plugged them into surface of dough. But as you could see, they could fall off easily when I tried to break open the yum thing (still no idea how to call it). Guess, I have to push the tomato deeper.

After baking, I noticed the bottom is a beautiful golden brown, it's almost like the bottom was fried. Yea too much oil.) But I forgot to take one photo, so:



I think this is a kind of snack, you eat warm, but it also tastes good when it's cold.

More than a year ago, I posted about baked French fries, and now I have perfected the method in the men's style.

Set temperature to 250°C (230-240°C with convection) before you get everything started and get your bakeware ready for your fries. Take two medium-sized potato, cut into short fries, 2 or 3 cm at most, just dump to the sheet pan or whatever you use, do not try anything else but throwing onto the pan. Men don't mess around.



Get your stash of condiments out of cabinet, then add

1. Vegetable oil that whatever you use to fry fries, I use olive oil.
2. Toasted sesame oil. (Optional)
3. Salt and white pepper.
4. Garlic powder.
5. Onion powder.
6. Chili powder or flakes, I use Jalapẽno flakes.
7. Celery powder.

What? Are you seriously asking the amounts of ingredients? Just sprinkle as much as you like, men don't care about detail. If you put into too much heat, then you can say that's a new Man v. Food episode!

I don't know if it is common for your fries with celery powder, but it is not for me. Just I made a little more celery powder, gotta to use it somewhere. Actually, I made #4 to #7 on my own.

It looks like more or less like the next photo and get ready for the spoon, it's about time to mess around:



Toss around, try to coat fries with everything you just dump in.



Once LGTBSTHTM (Look Good To Be Sent To Hell To Me), pop pan into the top rack of your oven. Yes, I know the temperature hasn't reached 250°C, probably not even 100°C. Let me tell you one thing very crucial: It does not matter at all. Just shove the pan into the darn oven already!

At this moment, before the first check at 10 minutes mark, you need to prepare vegetables. What, Y A N Veg? (You eat no vegetables) Okay, then you can skip this. If you do, prepare some vegetables while you wait.

Ten minutes later, take fries out and use the spoon to scrape the fries off the pan, then pop back in. Five minutes later, they should look brown on the skin. Add vegetables, mix well, the pop back in.



You check every five minutes to make sure they don't stick. When you first check after adding vegetables, you will notice that it's a bit wet and slimy. Don't worry about it, continue mixing. The excess liquid will be vaporized soon and the fries will taste even yummier because of vegetable juice. Repeat two or three times, it shall be done!



Transfer to your favorite TV bowl, yes, the same one you use to eat junk food from while you sit in front of television all Friday night and Saturday night and Sunday night, alright, every night.

Not so fast! Let the fries cool down whilst you are washing the pan. Come on, it's still too hot to eat, why not do some cleaning work. After you wash the pan, pop back into oven, the remnant of heat is enough to dry the pan. I hate dishes are wet after wash them, LOL!

Now you can grab the bowl and be the man of television! The fries are crispy outside, and soft and creamy inside.



I also make the iced tea during the process, which only takes up to about 45 minutes, you have plenty time to do things while waiting.

Recognize dat spoon? Yes, it's the same one you start with. This is the men's style, so you only wash one pan, one bowl, and one spoon! Hail to the laziness!

You don't need to pick fires up with hands, so you can keep your hands clean when you touch the remote. That spoon is the hero!

If you are really a man, you don't need wash the bowl, that is you eat from the pan! However, if you are truly a man in your bones, not only you don't need to wash the bowl, but also the spoon. You eat from the pan with your bare hand, which implies you scrape fries with your bare hands.

For that, I must admit I am either not man enough or not dumb enough. Well, I rather to be not man enough though. ;p

Anyway, enjoy your style fries. These made from other times:

      

It doesn't look as good as you buy from fast food restaurant or bags of frozen fries from supermarket, but I feel it tastes better. I didn't add any flavor on, just potato and oil.

After I took them out, I broke one, the feeling is same. Look at this cross section:



And, they don't bend! I remembered the fries I fried before, they were soft and wobbled like worms, though they didn't taste much different.



I learned from Jimmy's Food Factory on BBC, but I couldn't remember the exact detail. Anyway, here is how I did:

• Parboiled the fries for about 10 minutes, I used low heat. Somehow I felt I shouldn't be cooking for mashed potato, so I lowed the heat.
• Coated the fries with oil, then sent to oven. You can season, add some spices, but it's really not necessary. Great food doesn't require any added flavors. I didn't eat with salt or ketchup, only the original taste of potato.
• Once the top side started to wrinkle, I flipped them.
• I picked up and broke it, the feeling was right.
• I dropped one onto plate, crystal clink. Done.

If I recall correctly, if you freeze them, then you can fry them later. Just like the bags you buy from supermarket and this is how food factory manufacture French Fries, parboiling is the key. Something about the starch in potato, you have to parboil fries, so... uhmmm I forget the rest. ;)

I have also heard if you put fries in icy water for a while, 30 minutes I guess, make them really cold, then you fry them. It will be crispy, too. I will try this method next time.

After two failures, I made it at third try:



I wanted to make onion rings but not using eggs and frying method. My first try was using milk as batter, I torn bread with bare hands. A disaster to say the least. The second try used milk and butter, I used blender this time and baked bread to dry out the water. Much better.

I think the coating couldn't get glued on onion is the problem. So, the third time, I baked and blended bread, then baked and blended again. They are pretty fine.



I also added cheese in the batter, so it was thicker.



Using two bowls, so I could cover onion with coating and press the coating tight on onion rings.



I didn't spray oil on rings because I didn't have such thing. But it's good enough for me.