Building a Better French Fry

I can think of a lot of ways to jazz up homemade French fries, starting with frying them twice for maximum crispness, as the French do.

Dipping them in homemade aioli. Drizzling them with first-rate truffle oil. Spritzing them with malt vinegar. Those things work, too.

But until now I had never contemplated tossing French fries with duck fat.

Yes, I know that some chefs cook the starchy batons in a combo of duck fat and vegetable oils. But the 27-year old chef-owner of a new La Jolla eatery seems to be among the few who anoint regular cooked fries with duck fat, shallots, fresh herbs and grated parmesan cheese. Brandon Fortune, who hails from Atlanta, says he fries frozen white potatoes, “5/16” size, in soybean oil.  When they’re almost done, he swoops them from the hot oil and slips them into a metal mixing bowl that’s been sitting on an adjacent burner. Just minutes before the exchange, he scoops a tablespoon or two of room temperature (solid) duck fat into the bowl along with minced shallots and garlic, minced fresh basil and parsley and grated parmesan cheese. The fries are tossed around in their haute hot tub for a minute or two, then finished with a few drops of white truffle oil and a flurry of parmesan.

I tasted them recently during dinner at Aquamoreé, the restaurant that Brandon and his mother, Sheila,  opened about a month ago on La Jolla’s Prospect Street. It was love at first bite. Fragrant, delicious, the perfect ratio of crisp to tender, these were fries to shout about. Moreover, they were still stellar examples of the art some 20 or30 minutes after their arrival at our table. I asked Fortune how they keep their admirable crispy texture even after they’ve cooled to room temperature. It’s the duck fat, he replied, pointing out that duck fat is normally a solid, so as the fries cool, it returns to its solid state.

I guess that’s about as good an argument as you’re going to get about why French fries are bad for our arteries.

But it’s also about as good a reason as it gets for pigging out on Aquamoreé's Truffled Pommes Frites with Aioli Duo.

If you’re inspired to try this gig at home, be aware that Williams-Sonoma sells duck fat – all neat and tidy in a little glass jar – for $10.95 (11.2 ounces). Know, too, that there are plenty of Web sites out there giving instructions on frying potatoes and other things in duck fat or a duck fat-veggie oil combo. One of the most informative, and engaging, is The Cooking of Joy.

If you’re inclined intead to hustle over to Aquamoreé, you’ll find an attractive, stylish restaurant (with an unfortunately high noise level) and an extensive, eclectic menu that includes southern specialties such as shrimp ‘n grits, sophisticated fare such as espresso braised beef short ribs and seared ahi with pineapple-mango salsa, and clever riffs on international dishes such as carnitas sliders with jalapeno cabbage slaw.