Crispy Layers

Remember how I made the Hashbrowns? I had difficulties to get the crispiness in it.

I may have found the secret on how to make the crispy layers on them. The key is to use two different kinds of starches/flour.

The first one is "wheat starch", which is mostly used for Chinese steamed dim sum. To use this wheat starch, you must use boiling water and add it to the wheat starch to create a glutinous mixture. Do not add too much water, otherwise it will be too watery. Do not add too few water, otherwise you make dough for dim sum, which is not what you want.

When you have created the glutinous mixture, you add that to the main dish, in this case: hashbrowns. This way your hashbrowns will be held together. I don't know the exact measurements yet, I still have to experiment.

Secondly, you use potato flour and add that to the mixture of hashbrowns. This gives the crispiness to the hashbrowns when you deep fry them. You can add more of potato flour than wheat starch.

The third technique, and this is my favourite one, is to use self raising flour with some water and salt. That will give the crispiest layer you can ever dream of. The mixture should be viscous, but not too thick and not too watery.

Now, I learned about a last method from the best chef in the world.
Watch how it is done here:

Now you experiment with these.

Hash Browns: Day 3

Ok, I have made the water + flour + starch mixture.

I used 3 table spoons of flour and 1 table spoon of potato starch. Then I added water (around 7 table spoons of water) until the mixture is fluid. It needs to be pretty fluid, do not make it too thick. Don't forget to add salt, otherwise the coat doesn't have flavour.

Then I take out my hash browns from the fridge, let it warm up a bit and then fry it while dipping it in the water/flour/starch mixture.

This is the result: If you fry it a second time, it will be crispier.

Final result:

I think the hash browns were not salted enough, so next time I'm going to add more salt. I also think the potatoes were cooked for too long, so I will cook them less the next time.

To see how you make the hash brown, go here.

Hash Browns: Day 2

Ok, here we go!

1) I chopped 1 potato in small cubes like this.

2) I put them in boiling water for 3 minutes, because they soften pretty quickly.

3) I let them rest for about ten minutes.

4) For our first experiment we add:
     - half a tea spoon of salt
     - half a tea spoon of sugar
     - 3 tea spoons of flower
     - a little bit of pepper

Half a tea spoon of salt

Half a tea spoon of sugar

3 tea spoons of flower

A little bit of pepper

5) I mash them a little bit.

6) I put them in between some baking paper and roll them into the right thickness

7) I cut them in Hash Brown sizes and put them in the freezer.

Tomorrow, we will go to the next part: frying them.

For the water/flower mixture I used 7 cups of water, 3 cups of flower and 1 cup of potato starch.

Hash Browns: Day 1

I have always wanted to cook my own McDonald Hash Browns, crispy on the outside and tender on the inside. So I watched Youtube for recipes and every time I make them they aren't crispy. So let's start our own experiment.

According to McDonald's, these are the ingredients of Hash Browns:

Potato(es), Vegetable(s) Oil (Canola Oil, Soybean(s) Oil Hydrogenated, Flavor(s) Natural Beef, Citric Acid Preservative) , Salt, Corn Flour, Potato(es) Dehydrated, Dextrose, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate To Protect Color, Pepper(s) Black Extractives, Prepared with Vegetable(s) Oil(Canola Oil, Corn Oil, Soybean(s) Oil, Soybean(s) Oil Hydrogenated, with TBHQ and, Citric Acid Preservative) , Dimethylpolysiloxane An Anti-foaming Agent

The most important ingredients here are: 

- potatoes

- flour

- dextrose (sugar)

- salt

- pepper

- oil

And that's it. No eggs, no milk, no butter. So keep that in mind.

Potatoes should be cut into little blocks. If you look at the hash brown texture of McDonald's, then you see those potatoes are cut like that.

This is how you chop them:

Second, those hash browns use cooked potatoes. So you should have cooked them already before you prepare the hash brown. I would first chop the potatoes and then let them cook for about a few minutes until they begin to soften, don't overcook them.

Next, add the salt, sugar, pepper and flower to the potato blocks. Now here comes the experiment, how much salt, sugar, pepper and flower should we use? After seasoning, you should start creating the hash browns. Make them thin enough so that they will fry at the right rate later on.

Another thing that I learned is that you can get a crispy skin by using a mixture of flour and water to coat the outside, so we're going to do that too. 

Finally, if you want to coat your hash brown with the flour and water mixture, the hash brown should be hard enough, because otherwise it won't work as you have a texture that will fall apart. So that means you need to put your hash brown in the refrigerator first to make it hard. 

After you have iced the hash browns in the refrigerator, you coat them with the flour and water mixture and then you deep fry them. Hopefully it will work.

Go here to find out how I made the Hash Browns.