One of my favorite dishes to order anywhere is truffle fries. And I love the garlic/mayo aioli sauce that usually accompanies it. Since it was so cold outside this weekend and I was too lazy to drive to a restaurant and order takeout, I decided to use the ingredients I have at home to make some yummy homemade truffle fries!
The recipe I came across online was very easy to follow, although I did make a few tweaks. I prefer homemade baked fries to frozen reheated fries and I added a lot of extra garlic to my aioli! Check out how I made the fries below.
After setting the oven to 375, I took a whole garlic clove and cut off the top of it to prep it for roasting in the oven. I always have trouble cutting off the top because the cloves tips typically rest in different areas of the clove, so whenever I cut off the top, I always miss a few garlic cloves. This time, I cut off the top and then manually cut off the top of the straggling cloves. It’s really important to make sure the cloves are fully exposed to ensure that they easily squeeze out after roasting.
Next up, put the cloves in tin foil and fully cover it. Some people cover it in olive oil and add some salt and pepper but I don’t find this necessary. Toss your tin foil wrapped garlic head in the oven for about 45 minutes and begin to prep the potatoes.
I like my fries to be very thin cut. However, this is always difficult to do because fries that are unevenly cut also cook unevenly in the oven. So you end up with some burnt fries while the rest are okay. Make sure that you pay close attention when cutting the potatoes so they are all nearly equal in size.
I also prefer my fries to have the skin removed. I’ve just never enjoyed potato skins!
Coat your hand cut potatoes in olive oil (or any other type of cooking oil). I always grab a ziploc bag, a gallon ziploc would be best due to the large number of potato cuts, toss in the olive oil, close the bag and shake it. Make sure you leave plenty of air in the bag so the potatoes have enough room to move around and get fully coated with oil.
By now, your garlic should be finished roasting. Take out the garlic head and open the tin foil. Don’t use it yet though–wait until it’s cool enough to handle.
*You don’t have to roast the garlic. If I’m in a hurry, I take 2-3 garlic cloves, mash them and mix them into the garlic aioli.
This is when you can pump up the oven temperature to to 450 and put in the fries. Dump the bag of oil-covered potatoes on a cookie sheet and loosely spread out the fries. Put them in the oven for about 20 minutes. Once they start to turn golden, you can take them out and toss them a bit so all the sides get cooked well. Don’t make the mistake of taking out the fries early and trying to toss them. They’ll solidly stick to the pan while they’re cooking if you take them out too early and if you try to move them, they’ll just get mashed up. I left my fries in for about 30 minutes total, though you can leave them in for longer, depending on how thickly you cut the fries.
While you wait for the fries to cool, you can begin preparing the aioli.
Take the roasted garlic head and carefully squeeze out the garlic. Make sure none of the garlic skin gets caught up in the garlic. Gently chop or squeeze the roasted garlic, so that it can be easily mixed into the other ingredients.
Now mix together the mayo, truffle oil, truffle salt and the roasted garlic. I added some extra garlic to the mixture because I really like garlic! I used a garlic “spread”, which is basically just raw chopped garlic. Since I enjoy the strong taste of garlic, I did not use roasted garlic or minced canned garlic, to ensure the aioli has a fresh, garlicky taste. In the future, I might skip the step of adding roasted garlic since it’s a bit time consuming and didn’t feel like it added enough garlic flavor.
Once these items are mixed together, you can put the aioli in the fridge as you wait for the fries to finish cooking.
A note on some products I used–for the truffle oil and truffle salt, I did not use pure oil or salt. This is mostly because I couldn’t find pure truffle oil at my local grocery store and pure truffle salt was incredibly expensive. Instead, I found a Sabatino Tartufi white-truffle infused olive oil and Trader Joes Himalayan salt with truffles. These proved to be more cost effective and didn’t take away from the flavor of the aioli at all. I also chose white truffle oil versus black oil due to to its more subtle flavor. However, you can definitely use black truffle oil as well. I’ll have to try it out next time and see if it’s too strong.
Your fries should be done by now. Once you take them out of the oven, heavily sprinkle the fries with Parmesan cheese (I used a boxed grated cheese, though you can use fresh Parmesan) and lightly dust them with truffle salt.
Take out the aioli, dip your fries in the sauce and enjoy!
Ingredients (2-4 servings)
- 3 medium Idaho Potatoes
- 1 head garlic
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1/2 cup mayonnaise
- 4 tsp white truffle infused olive oil (or regular truffle oil)
- 1 tsp truffle salt
- 2 tbsp grated Parmesan cheese
- Raw garlic sauce (optional)
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350.
- Cut off top of a garlic head. Wrap in tin foil and put into the oven for 45 minutes.
- Peel and thinly cut potatoes. Put potatoes into a ziploc bag, add olive oil, close bag and shake to coat potatoes. Place potatoes on an ungreased cookie sheet.
- Remove garlic head and open tin foil to cool. Increase oven temperature to 450 and insert fries for 35 minutes or until golden brown.
- Squeeze garlic out of the garlic head. Chop and/or smash. Place into bowl. Add mayonnaise, truffle oil and half the truffle salt (1/2 tsp). Add optional raw garlic sauce for taste (~1 tsp). Thoroughly mix together until smooth. Put aioli in fridge.
- Remove fries and heavily coat with Parmesan cheese and remaining truffle salt (~1/2 tsp). Let cool until warm and enjoy with aioli.
Let me know if you made it and what you think. Enjoy!
xoxo Kasia
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