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Process for making frozen potato French fries
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Process for making frozen potato French fries


Introduction

• After harvesting, potatoes are used for a
  variety of purposes, and not only as a vegetable
  for cooking at home. In fact, it is likely that
  less than 50 percent of potatoes grown worldwide
  are consumed fresh.
• The rest are processed into potato food products
  and food ingredients, fed to cattle, pigs and
  chickens, processed into starch for industry, and
  re-used as seed tubers for growing the next
  season's potato crop.
• Global consumption of potato as food is shifting
  from fresh potatoes to added-value, processed
  food products. One of the main items in that
  category goes by the unappetizing name of frozen
  potatoes, but includes most of the French
  fries served in restaurants and fast food chains
  worldwide.
• The production process is fairly simple peeled
  potatoes are shot through cutting blades,
  parboiled, air dried, par fried, frozen and
  packaged. The world's appetite for factory-made
  French fries has been put at more than 11 million
  tonnes a year.

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Processing Requirements
Desirable characters Higher
dry matter content 20 and above
Low reducing sugars Less than 250 mg/100g f. wt

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Indian potato varieties suitable for making
French fries
Kufri Surya

• Kufri Frysona

Kufri Frysona
Adapted to North Indian plains Yield potential of
40 t/ha Resistance to late blight and wart,
suitable for making French fries
Adapted to Warmer regions/seasons Yield
potential of 40 t/ha Resistance to hopper burn,
mite, wart and tolerant to heat
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Method for making frozen French fries
Peeling Trimming Cutting Sizing Blanching D
rying Par Frying Freezing Packaging
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Peeling Trimming Potatoes are washed thoroughly
with clean water and then peeled. Normally steam
method is used, in which a whole lot of tubers
are put into a pressurized hot tank. After enough
time, the pressure is quickly released and the
potato skin is removed. After the potatoes come
out of the peeler vessel, they're sprayed with
high-power water jets to remove any peel still
clinging. Peeling losses depend upon the
morphological characters of the potatoes. In
shallow eyed tubers, peeling losses are much
lesser than deep eyed tubers. Peeling losses are
minimum with smooth potatoes. Peeled and washed
potatoes are trimmed manually during which
process residual skin, eyes and green portions
are removed.

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Cutting Sizing Peeled potatoes are cut into
sticks, lengthwise so as to get long cuts. The
cross section of the sticks ranges between 7 and
12mm and is generally 10mm. the length of the
strips can be 5-7cm. Mechanical slicers or strip
cutting appliances of different capacities are
available for this purpose. For ensuring minimum
damage to the French fry strips, water knives are
being used. Potatoes are transported by water and
pressed against knives mounted on pipes. The
sticks are graded for size. Too short and thin
sticks are removed, as also the discoloured ones.

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Blanching The sticks are blanced in water at
70-95C for several minutes to inactivate the
enzeme. The procedure also results in removal of
some of the sugars from the surface of sticks,
resulting in uniformity of fry colour.
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Drying After blanching, sticks are partially
dried to remove excess moisture. If the French
Fries are meant to be deep-fried, the water
content should be around 70-75 if they're to be
cooked in an oven, 65-70 for microwave French
Fries, it's about 55-60.

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Par-Frying The "par fry" is a cooking stage where
the strips are cooked for a about a minute and a
half in oil that's a bit hotter than normal
French Fry cooking temperatures. All frozen
French Fries are par-fried at the manufacturing
plant before you fry them completely at home. The
sticks are fried at 180C for about 2 minutes or
at 150C for about 5 minutes.

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Freezing Packing The final step is blast
freezing of the strips. Blast freezing is a
method that freezes the French Fries which travel
down on the wire conveyor using air cooled down
to about -40C. This prevents them sticking
together and helps protect the flavour. After the
processing is done, the French Fries are bagged
and/or boxed and shipped out to their final
destinations (distributors, restaurants,
supermarkets) where they are then cooked to
order.
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