Preparing And Cooking Tuscan Fries

Our answer

Nigella's recipe for Tuscan Fries (from NIGELLISSIMA) is unusual as it starts the cut potatoes in cold oil and as the oil heats up the potatoes cook through, giving fries that are crisp on the outside but soft in the centre. We would suggest giving the whole potatoes a good scrub and then drying them thoroughly before cutting them up. The cut potatoes are put into a clean tea towel to absorb any excess moisture before cooking. We would not recommend washing the potatoes after cutting them up as it makes it more difficult to remove any excess moisture and could slow down and affect the cooking of the fries.

We have not tried making the fries in a deep fat fryer and unfortunately it probably depends on the model of deep fat fryer used. In theory it should be possible to put the potatoes into the fryer and switch it on, but the heat needs to be quite high initially to heat the oil up quickly, as this helps to seal the outside of the potatoes and prevent them from absorbing too much oil. As it is likely that automatic models will not necessarily heat up that quickly, our preference would be to use a large, regular saucepan and a thermometer.