Real Chips.....?

[Dan_1981]

Looking for advice on the best way to cook home made chips?

We don't have a deep fat fryer either......

[BliarOut]

Oven? Or will they turn into long thin roasties?

[grumbledoak]

A pan full of hot oil would do. But, you may as well make wedges or oven chips instead. It's much safer.

[Dan_1981]

Yeah we do wedges quite often, and they're fine and over chips are pretty good if you get decent ones.

But nothgin quite beats home made chips n egg or home made fish n chips.

[escargot]

You can make passable chips in an oven. I occasionally make chunky chips and it's fairly simple.

Slice the potatoes to the desired thickness, turn the oven up to 220c and leave it to get hot. Once it's reached the correct temp, brush the chips with a little oil on all sides (or chuck the chips into a mixing bowl, slosh in some oil and get your fingers in and mix them up). place in a single layer on a baking tray and place in the oven. Give them 10 mins then turn it down to 200c.

They aren't chippy chips and nor are they french fries, but they do go damn well with a nice steak.

[Puggit]

Our method,

Peel and cut the tatties
Par boil the chips
Let them cool down in a colander
Put them back in the pan, close the lid and shake n' bash the chips.
Spray fry-light on a baking tray
Put the chips on the tray and cover in fry-light
Bake the chips at 220oC, turning a few times until they are golden

Easy!

[SVX]

Straw fries in a medium pan of sunflower or groundnut oil are doable, but you'll need to be careful with the oil. Do you cook on gas or electric?

[Dan_1981]

SVX said:

Straw fries in a medium pan of sunflower or groundnut oil are doable, but you'll need to be careful with the oil. Do you cook on gas or electric?

Gas

[Davey S2]

Triple Cooked chips ala Heston Blumenthal

Ingredients
4 Large King Edward or Maris Piper potatoes, peeled and cut into 2cm-thick batons
2 tsp Sea salt
1 litre Groundnut oil


Method
Place the chipped potatoes in a large pan of cold water and soak for half an hour. This removes excess starch, giving the chips a lighter texture. Rinse and place the chips in a pan with cold water and the sea salt. Bring to the boil and cook for 10–12 minutes, or until you can insert a knife easily through the centre of the largest chip. Drain and run the chips under very cold water to prevent further cooking. Pat dry with kitchen towel and arrange on a baking tray lined with greaseproof paper.
Place the tray in the freezer for 30 minutes. This will make the chips nice and cold before you drop them into the hot oil to fry. Fill a saucepan a third full of oil (about 1 litre) and heat it to 130°C. Remove the chips from the freezer, pat dry with kitchen towel and carefully lower into the hot oil in batches of 8–10, cooking for 4–6 minutes, until they start to colour. Drain and continue cooking the remaining chips before cooling them in the freezer for another 30 minutes. Alternatively, prepare up to this stage a day in advance and leave them to cool overnight.
For the final cooking, heat the same oil to 180°C and again, lower small batches into it. Cook for 2–3 minutes or until crisp and golden. As they come out of the fryer, drain on kitchen paper and give each batch of chips a good sprinkling of sea salt. Serve with ketchup and eat while hot.

[johnnywgk]

When you say you don't have a deep fat fryer, do you mean an electric one? Have you got pan with a strainer? as in the metal net (can't for the life of me think what it's called) that you can take the cooked chips out the pan, so they drain.

If you have the pan/metal net thing, try gently cooking chips until you can pierce with a knife, then take out and put the net of chips in the upside down
lid of the pan.

Wack the heat up to max, until bubbling, then gentally place the net of soft chips into the boiling oil until the desired oclour/crispness.

Obviously you can soak in salted water to reduce the starch, and get some salt to soak into the potato.

Always come out perfect, and not too much fuffing about.


Works well with skins on and saves peeling.

[spikeyhead]

If you're going to use a pan, use a wok, means that as the oil boils and rises it spreads out rather than threatening to come over the top.

[parapaul]

Puggit said:

Our method,

Peel and cut the tatties
Par boil the chips
Let them cool down in a colander
Put them back in the pan, close the lid and shake n' bash the chips.
Spray fry-light on a baking tray
Put the chips on the tray and cover in fry-light
Bake the chips at 220oC, turning a few times until they are golden

Easy!

This... Except I don't let them cool. Boil, drain, shake & bash, then straight into the hot oven.

20 minutes later, hey presto! Guilt-free (and SWMBO-friendly) chips

[Puggit]

parapaul said:

Puggit said:

Our method,

Peel and cut the tatties
Par boil the chips
Let them cool down in a colander
Put them back in the pan, close the lid and shake n' bash the chips.
Spray fry-light on a baking tray
Put the chips on the tray and cover in fry-light
Bake the chips at 220oC, turning a few times until they are golden

Easy!

This... Except I don't let them cool. Boil, drain, shake & bash, then straight into the hot oven.

20 minutes later, hey presto! Guilt-free (and SWMBO-friendly) chips

The reason we cool them is that they don't break up as much when bashed.

I must admit the recipe is in fact the official Slimming World recipe - hence it's guilt free (on a carbs day)

[zakelwe]

Any chips done in the oven are actually some sort of permutation of roasted or baked, but cut into chip shapes. A real home made chip has to be done in deep fat.

Andy

[grumbledoak]

zakelwe said:

Any chips done in the oven are actually some sort of permutation of roasted or baked, but cut into chip shapes. A real home made chip has to be done in deep fat.

I don't see anyone even attempting to argue, Andy. But, if you don't have one of those new-fangled automatic jobbies you might want to bear in mind that the old-fashioned chip pan was #1 cause of house fires for decades...

[calibrax]

grumbledoak said:

zakelwe said:

Any chips done in the oven are actually some sort of permutation of roasted or baked, but cut into chip shapes. A real home made chip has to be done in deep fat.

I don't see anyone even attempting to argue, Andy. But, if you don't have one of those new-fangled automatic jobbies you might want to bear in mind that the old-fashioned chip pan was #1 cause of house fires for decades...

This is very true. Usually on a Saturday night when people would come home from the pub, out of their skulls, and decide to make a late night portion of chips. They'd put the chip pan on, then fall asleep waiting for it to heat up... often with fatal consequences.

Edited by calibrax on Saturday 20th February 22:01

[missdiane]

Homemade chip fryers scare the hell out of me- memories of a fire in our house when we were kids caused by a chip pan

I would boil in salted water until al dente, and shallow fry on all sides, never tried it but it would be my first attempt... would it work?

[shirt]

yesterdays times had a 2 page spread re. chip recipes. best appeared to be the triple cooked or a double cook in goose fat. would post them all but am using thephone which is a right pita.

[Puggit]

shirt said:

yesterdays times had a 2 page spread re. chip recipes. best appeared to be the triple cooked or a double cook in goose fat. would post them all but am using thephone which is a right pita.

Times linky

(including HB's recipe for triple-cooked chips!)