My goal is to give customers a hot crispy, fresh out of the fryer, five-ounce portion of cooked frozen French fries. However, my employees must be serving more than that because when I do the math we always come up short for the projected yield.

Many times I have gone over the obvious answers about fresh French fries… make sure the cutting blade is sharp so you don’t end up with a lot of short fries filling up the container for example.  And, be sure to specify an Idaho russet variety as they have above average starch and solids and will shrink less when fried, giving you the maximum available plate coverage and yield.

With frozen fries; the cup, bag, or basket shape can be extra important too. We were at the photo studio today and did an experiment. Using the same six ounce portion of frozen fries that ended up weighing 5 ounces once cooked from the frozen state (not slacked or left out at room temp). What did the fries look like when placed in different containers.? With container “A” on the left and container “B” on the right, check out the pictures below on how one side stacks the fries up tall but does not seem to contain as big a portion as the other side. And what looks full to someone in the kitchen could mean that they end up portioning even more than the five ounces to make the container look full.

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