Why It Pays To Use A Serrated Knife When Cutting Homemade Fries

There's nothing much better than a hot, crispy, homemade french fry. Yet the process of making these fries can be a bit trickier than it seems, especially when it comes to achieving the perfect crispy exterior. If your homemade fries turn out soggy, the solution may not have to do with your cooking method — it could be your knife. Instead of using a basic straight-edge knife to cut your fries, reach for your serrated knife.

The best knife for cutting tomatoes and bread, the serrated knife has a jagged edge that easily cuts through sponge-like foods with hard exteriors (like a baguette) without needing to apply too much pressure and squish it flat. When it comes to making french fries, the serrated edge is used for a different purpose: adding texture to the exterior of the fry. The added groves create much more surface area on the fry, which results in more space for the fry to interact with the heat from the fryer or oven and get crispy. Imagine ultra-crispy crinkle-cut fries ... but with minuscule crinkles.

To make these fries, simply wash and peel your russet potatoes (the best type of potato to use for crispy, homemade fries) and cut them into ¼-inch chunks with your serrated knife. Then rinse them, blanch everything in a bit of salty vinegar water, drain, and fry the lot in hot oil or bake them in the oven.

There's a different fry shape for every fry lover: steak fry, waffle fry, shoestring fry ... the list goes on and on (there are at least 30 types of french fries to try). While using a serrated knife can help you gain more crispiness for standard-cut fries, there are other techniques you can use to cut your potatoes for a range of crispness.

The key aspect to remember is the mass-to-surface area ratio. Take steak fries, for instance — because each fry is thicker, it takes longer to cook through fully — and by the time the thickest part of the fry is cooked, the thinner part may be burned. If the interior is your favorite part, cut your potatoes into thick steak-cut fries. To maximize crispiness, however, you can still use your serrated knife to cut them, or even double fry them in the fryer.

On the other end of the spectrum, if you want a fry that relies on its crispy exterior to shine, cut shoestring fries. Only the size of a matchstick, these fries can be made using a mandolin slicer with the julienne blade, or carefully cut them with a serrated knife (which could prove more challenging). Similarly, you can make waffle fries using the waffle cut setting on the mandolin, which offers an endless amount of ridges and surface space for the crispiest fry.