Crispy on the outside, fluffy in the middle.......
I’m into the second week of my ‘not really a resolution’ resolution to eat healthier, and I’m starting to struggle.
It’s the point where I’m craving for the foods I can’t have, like a bacon sandwich, or fish and chips or - I can hardly bring myself to say it - cheese!
I can’t have a bacon sandwich without the bacon, or a cheese board without the cheese, but I can still have chips if I can cook them in a healthy way.
That means no deep frying in dripping or oil, whether once, twice or thrice.
So my mission, should I choose to accept it, is to find a way to achieve a healthy chip that is crispy on the outside and fluffy on the inside, but without the deep fat frying that actually makes them that way.
Tom Cruise might think twice about this mission, but I reckon this recipe accomplishes the brief.
Ingredients serves 2
3-4 medium Maris Pipers 2 tablespoons olive oil Sea salt
Method
First important step is to choose the right potato for the job. And in my opinion, there is only one up to the task - the Maris Piper.
A firm, floury potato, giving a fluffy and creamy middle when cooked, this is your friend for a crispy chip. (a King Edward is a good substitute, if you can’t get MP’s).
The peeled potatoes are cut into chips (mine were about ½ inch wide) and then rinsed a couple of times in cold water to wash off the starch.
Put in a pan of cold, salted water and bring to the boil. Simmer strongly between 8-10 minutes until cooked, but not breaking up. The point of a knife should easily go into a chip.
Drain well in a colander, give good shake, cover with a tea towel and leave to cool and dry out.
When cool, transfer the chips to a shallow oven tray and leave in the fridge to get cold and dry out even more. I leave mine overnight without covering them, and they don’t discolour. This also means on the day you want the chips, you don’t need to fuss about with the preparation.
You don’t need to leave them as long as this, but the important bit is to make sure the chips are cold and dry before going in the oven. Prepping them in the morning to cook in the evening should be okay.
Obviously, with deep frying sent to the sin-bin, oven baking is the only other way.
Heat oven to 220℃/fan 200℃.
Carefully place the cold chips in a bowl, sprinkle with a little sea salt, and add a couple of tablespoons of olive oil.
Get your hands in the bowl and gently turn over the chips to coat with the oil. Don’t worry if a few break up, they will be crunchy nuggets of golden potato when cooked.
Put the chips back onto the oven tray, spreading them out to give them a bit of space.
Bake for about 40 minutes, turning once, or until crispy and golden.
Enjoy any way you want, with tomato ketchup the default condiment, but mayonnaise all the way for me. So there you have it. Crispy, crunchy, golden chips and using only two tablespoons of olive oil.