A kitchen notebook from Ghent · since 2021
Notes on making Belgian fries at home, the sauces that go on them, and the huts by the road where other people make them better than I do.
I started this because my sister in Stockport kept texting me for “the fry thing” and I kept giving her a different answer. This is the version I actually use, with the mistakes left in.
Why twice, the temperatures, and a timer that tells you when to stop fiddling.
before the fatFloury, old, kept out of the fridge. Plus how many kilos to buy for a crowd.
the argumentWhat I use, what Rik uses, and when it has to go.
15 of themAndalouse to stoofvleessaus, with opinions nobody asked for.
going outSix frietkoten I keep going back to. One of them is gone.
since 2021Dated notes, mostly about what went wrong.
meWho writes this, and why it is in English.
The first cold Sunday, so the fryer came up from the cellar. I had forgotten how long a solid block of tallow takes to melt: forty minutes on the low setting before I dared turn it up.
Bintjes from the market, a ten-kilo sack now leaning against the cellar door that should see us to November. The fries were good. Not Caravan good. The kitchen smells of fat, the hallway smells of fat, my jumper smells of fat. Worth it.
Supermarket Agria because the market was rained off. Perfectly good fries, a bit sweeter and more yellow. Bart said he preferred them. I am choosing not to take that personally.
Too hot to stand next to a fryer, so we cycled out to the Caravan. Closed until the 25th, said a handwritten sign taped to the window. We ate sandwiches on the bench by the roundabout instead and felt cheated, in a mild sort of way.
The whole log, back to 2021.
Order friet met at a frietkot here and you get mayonnaise. You don’t name the sauce. “Met” only means “with”, and with means mayo.
Rik, my father-in-law, on air fryers: “That’s an oven with opinions.”
