Slow-Cooked French Fries
This has been a week of updates for both the blog and in my personal. I know Natasha hates how much I talk about GMAT, but I can’t not talk about the one thing that has consumed so much of my life! My GMAT classes finally got over which has been such a relief. For the past 11 weeks I had no weekend and now I’ll have some of that time back! Last Saturday was my last class and I was ready to celebrate the remaining weekend BUT no sooner were my classes over than I felt miserably ill. While I am still reeling from the fever and the change in season, I am actually quite pumped for this weekend — a day that can finally begin without an annoying alarm.
From a blog front, I have a bunch of new updates which I will roll out slowly. But in a gist— I will soon be exploring new platforms for both the blog and my published videos as a way to diversify my reach with both newer audiences and formats. Other than that, I was recently interviewed for a news TV channel that runs a program about budding influencers. I will be the “influencer of the week” for the show! It was kind of amazing how to see how TV shows are produced. A producer for the show reached out and almost a month later, I was asked to interview. They sent a small camera crew to my office and we shot the whole thing in less than 30 minutes. I was given the questions a day prior and then the producer was patched into my ear and she asked me questions while I had to act as if the telecast was being conducted live. In fact, they even took a minute-long B-roll of me just nodding so that they can edit that in to look as if I am avidly listening to the host of the show. I still don’t know when the show will air but the moment I do, I will link the video to this recipe and my Instagram for people to watch.
Of the many questions that I was asked in my interview, one of them was what advice I would give budding influencers. I had two insights for this. Firstly, don’t call yourself an influencer— it’s a marketing term that belittles what you really are; a person that’s built a community by sharing and celebrating your passion. The moment we choose to call ourselves an influencer, we lose out on the purpose of having a blog or a platform because we tend to start focusing on the monetisation angle which should never be the primary MO of a blog. The second thing that I had mentioned was to be patience and invest time. Being patient allows you to invest the time you need to grow your platform; whether that is by engaging more with your community or focussing your efforts to improve your content, the more time you spend the greater performance you will see with your platform.
French fries are all about time and patience. Even though they are literally the fastest “fast food” out there, homemade fries take some time. Now, this doesn’t mean that you need some extraordinary skill to make them, you just can’t expect them in belly ASAP. In fact, these slow-cooked fries require no skill— it’s a simple cut, soak, and a single fry! Yup, you heard it right, you don’t have to fry them twice. Follow along to the get the recipe and I hope you do try them this weekend.
Glimpses from the week
Ingredients
3-4 large potatoes, scrubbed clean (~ 1 kg)
Veggie oil (for frying) ~750 ml
Coarse sea salt (or regular salt)
1/2 teaspoon of garlic powder
Method
Peel potatoes; cut into long French-fry sticks
Place all the sticks in cold water for about 30 minutes
Dry out the potatoes in a paper towel. Make sure they are as dry as possible to get the crispiest fries!
Transfer potatoes to a large deep heavy pot, spreading so they’re no more than 2 layers deep. Pour in oil to cover by 1”. For me, this came to about 1 liter of oil
Heat the oil on medium heat for 10 minutes while constantly stirring
Once the oil begins to bubble, turn the heat on high and fry for another 25-35 minutes until golden brown
Using a slotted spoon, transfer fries to paper towels to drain. Season with garlic powder and sea salt.