Soaking potatoes in sugar water is one of my favorite potato hacks. Soaking them has two benefits. First, it pulls out some of the starch from the potatoes. That helps to prevent them from sticking together when you cook them. And when you're cooking these in such close proximity in the pan, that's definitely a help. Second, the sugar creates a barrier around the outside of the potato that helps to repel some of the oil. Without it, the potato pieces will absorb more oil and will become soggy. In this recipe, there isn't that much oil so the potato pieces can't absorb too much overall, but this is a really great hack for when you're deep frying potatoes. The longer you can soak potatoes in sugar water, the better these two hacks will be. This recipe says a minimum of 30 minutes. But, if you can soak them for a couple hours or even overnight, you'll come up with better fries.