Demonstration Speech: Using an air fryer to make homemade low-fat French fries

Here in Idaho we love potatoes, particularly French fries. The big problem with deep frying is that the potatoes pick up lots of oil. For example, a large serving (5.4 oz) of McDonalds French fries has 470 calories with 198 calories (40%) coming from fat. Assuming the fat is canola oil, that’s about one and a half tablespoons of oil.

If you instead make fries at home with an appliance called an air fryer, then you can cut the amount of oil by a factor of four. The potato sticks are sprayed with oil rather than submerged in it. An air fryer is a countertop forced convection oven which circulates hot air around the basket of food. Inside the oven there is a spiral heating element and a fan (as shown above).

Begin with 12 ounces of Russet Burbank potatoes – one jumbo or two large ones. Either peel them, or scrub the surface with a wet brush to remove dirt. Cut the potatoes into uniform slices, and then cut the slices into your favorite thickness of square sticks.

As shown above, there is a very large range of thicknesses.

Soak the potato sticks in a bowl of cold water for ten minutes to remove surface starch. Then dry them, using a salad spinner (as shown above) if you have one, or paper towels if you don’t.

Place the sticks in the air fryer basket, and spray them with cooking oil spray from an aerosol can. Cook at 380 F until browned and crisp. Depending on the thickness this may take ten to twenty minutes. (See Williams Sonoma recipes for shoestring and seasoned regular fries).  

Back in February 7, 2016 I blogged about a Demonstration Speech: A world of healthy snacks from your microwave. Tortilla chips were included. Don’t try to air fry tortillas – they will float to the top and hit the fan. A demonstration speech is project 3 in the advanced Toastmasters communication manual on Speaking to Inform. Back on December 9, 2012, at Six Minutes, Andrew Dlugan blogged about How to Master the Demonstration speech.