Hello hungry peoples,
The ability to cook potatoes to a crispy deliciousness is an essential life skill and there are a number of articles and TV shows about making the perfect chip. I really enjoyed Alton Brown’s adventures in particular. His TV show “Good Eats” is pretty old now but a perfect food bible. Thankfully most of it is on youtube and I recommend it heartily. The twice fried method seems to be the most common for producing amazing chips. Even McDonalds use this. It is super hassles though, especially if you don’t have a deep fryer. While I appreciate a perfect chip, I also need something that is easily achievable at home. Let’s face it, chips are a side, not a main dish, and thus there is only so much time and effort I can expend on them. This is an easy way to make awesome crispy chips without needing a deep fryer.
Ingredients
- 4 large poatoes
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 1 tbsp salt
Cooking Directions
- Preheat your oven to 200°C. Put a baking pan in with 1/2 cup of olive oil.
- Peel the potatoes and chop them up into chip shapes. Personal preference here. If you prefer french fries, cut them thin, wedges if you want something chunkier.
- Boil the chips in salted water for about 15 minutes. They should be cooked and just starting to fall apart. By parboiling the potatoes you make the inside cooked and fluffy. Next you are going to give them a crispy exterior.
- Drain the potatoes. Let them sit and steam for a bit. This helps to remove some of the excess moisture which is the enemy of crispy chips.
- Get your hot baking pan out of the oven. As you pick up the strainer full of chips, rough them up a bit. This produces lots of nice edges to crisp up. Pour the chips into the hot baking pan and watch out for any splattering oil.
- Use an egg flip to turn the chips over, coating them in oil. Add extra oil if you need and then put them back in the oven.
- The chips will need up to 30 minutes in the oven to really crisp up as they are quite moist. Give them a turn halfway to make sure they cook evenly.
- Once they look gorgeous remove them from the baking pan and drain on some paper towel. The last thing you need to do is add lots of salt. You don’t want to salt the potatoes earlier as it makes them weep water and thus harder to get crispy. Go to town at the end. That’s it, you’re done!
Difficulty: Easy peasy