Turn Your French Fries Back Into a Potato

French fries are great, but every now and then don't you wish you had a crisp, clean potato instead of soggy, greasy French fries? You might think that the chemical transformations involved in deep frying potatoes to form French fries are irreversible, but it turns out that it's quite easy to turn your French fries back into a potato! In this Instructable, I'll show you how to take your faulty French fries and turn them back into the potato you deserve.

Assuming you've already got your French fries, the first step is to find some potatoes. Counterintuitively, the process of turning your French fries back into a potato will require potatoes, so you're going to want to head to the grocery store after you head to McDonald's. It's difficult to estimate the number of potatoes you need for a given quantity of French fries, but I'd say you're safe buying one medium-sized russet potato per 120g of French fries. If you don't have access to an accurate scale, you can simply ball up the French fries in your hand and estimate what size potato they would make and then buy a potato close to that size.

Once you have your French fries and potatoes, the next step is to blend up the French fries into a fine paste. Any blender or food processor will work well for this. The consistency of the paste should be smooth, almost like mashed potatoes. If your French fries are too dry and not clumping together, try adding in a little water or a little butter.

Next, microwave your potatoes in order to loosen the skin. Place the potato in a bowl with a small amount of water and microwave on high for 4-5 minutes. Take out the potato when the skin starts to wrinkle and look dry.

Once the potato skins are nice and loose, cut the potatoes length-wise (that is, along their longest axis) and scoop out the flesh of the potato using a spoon. Try to keep the skin as intact as possible, though if you end up accidentally ripping off some chunks of skin set them aside for use later.

Now that you've got your hollowed-out potatoes, take your French fry mixture and place it in the potato skins. Fill up the potato skins to the original volume of the potato as best you can.

Using some needle and thread, sew the potato skins back together. Be gentle, as the potato skins will tear fairly easily! This is where that spare pile of potato skin patches will come in handy. If you end up mangling some potatoes, jump right in with the skin grafting and soon your potatoes will be as good as new.

Enjoy your new potatoes!