What does cooking in oil make potato stiff and crunchy, but cooking in water just makes it soft and floppy?
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On contact with oil, the moisture on the surface of the potao, or any other food item, immediately vaporises, sending out volcanic jets of steam that spatter the oil. The exterior of the potato is now dry, mummified into a hard crust. Within that shell, the temperature skyrockets and the water vapour that didn’t make it to the surface in time to escape is trapped. It steams the potato flesh instead, giving it that fluffy quality that contrasts so nicely to the crunch.
Potatoes are full of starch. That starch wants to absorb water and puff up. If you cook them in water, the potato starch hydrates (more) and the cell walls that give the potato structure break down and get floppy (same reason crunchy vegetables get soft when you cook them).
When you fry them in oil, the oil is a lot hotter than the boiling point of water. In addition to being unable to absorb water (’cause there isn’t any), the water that’s in the potato turns to steam and escapes. This is where all the bubbles during frying come from. The potato gets way hotter and the water is driven off…what’s left is basically browned dried out starch and “toasted” potato structure…without the water, that’s stiff/crunchy. If you soak a chip in water, it will absorb water and go back to being floppy.
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