Pretty good chips

Made some quite successful chips today. I've been experimenting more with chips and fried potatoes in general ever since I tried triple-cooked chips. I've never quite matched those - to follow the recipe exactly I'd need an oil thermometer, or a dedicated deep-fat fryer with a thermostat. I have had some good results though, and I'm now confident of producing chips which are much better than you get in most chippies, and at least as good as what you find in particularly good ones.

 

I've drawn some inspiration from Blumenthal's approach, but I've learnt from it rather than basing my technique on it...

 

* Scrub potatoes and chop into chunky chips - my maris pipers were mostly pretty small, so they only went into four or six pieces each. There's a case to be made for losing the skins, and maybe doing something else with them, but I quite like just leaving them on.

 

* Boil them for a while, not really long enough to cook them. I stuck these in a bowl in the microwave with pre-boiled water for about ten minutes.

 

* Rinse them off with cold water, to remove starch from the outside and cool them down. Then dry them off a bit.

 

* Fry them in a fair amount of oil - I'm not going for deep frying here, but maybe 'shallow frying' would be pushing it.

 

* Start out with not-very-hot oil, and gradually increase the heat over the course of about half an hour; by the end, it should be on a medium heat, or maybe just a little hotter. Turn occasionally.

 

* Remove from the pan, drain, salt, pepper if you like. Serve with ketchup, I like a bit of hot sauce with mine as well.

Done