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Home Made Potato Chips

prasad2

By prasad2
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prasad2

prasad2

Posted
Posted (edited)

Pardon me if there is an earlier thread on home made potato chips.

How do you make them and do you flavor them and if so how.

The other day for my bar I sliced about ten potatoes and fried them crisp and added some salt and cayenne. They were good the same day and not as good the next day. They were not like the store bought.

Do you slice and soak them and then fry? or slice and fry them right away? Oil temp ?

Thanks

Edited by prasad2 (log)
Thali Regional cuisine of India
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Katherine

Katherine

Posted
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While you're waiting for the potato cooking class, here's what I've done for potato chips: rinse the sliced potatoes in cold water to remove surface starch, dry with a paper towel before frying. Season with salt, and eat immediately, as the homemade ones don't keep like store bought ones do, probably packaging issues.

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jackal10

jackal10

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Posted (edited)

This is an example of the same word meaning two different things:

In the UK chips mean french fries (as in fish and chips); the thin snack food fried potato things are called crisps, unless of course they are re-formed dehydrated potato starch, in which case they are called Pringles and the like.

The snack food industry is a major business, and almost alchemy since it transforms a low cost raw material into something worth over 25 times as much, and comparable in price to gold.

Do you slice and soak them and then fry? or slice and fry them right away? Oil temp ?

Slice, wash, dry, fry fairly slowly at 350F/175F-375F/180C dropping to 320F/160C-345F/178C

Choice of variety is important, and late season potatoes, or ones that have been stored cold for some time will have more sugar content, and so darken quicker, and will need to be fried at lower temperatures to crisp before blackening. Some processors hot dip their chips (1 min at 150F) in an acid solution to help overcome this. Dry before frying. Solutions include citric acid, phosphoric acid, calcium chloride, sodium citrate, and sodium bisulfite, with or without citric acid (campden solution). I guess diet Coca Cola might work, since it features citric and phosphoric acids, but avoid the sugar in the real thing.

Try straight black pepper as a flavour. Worcester sauce is good too.

Edited by jackal10 (log)
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jackal10

jackal10

Posted
Posted (edited)
Late season potatoes! Do you use chef's or Idaho's?

Does the Worscester sauce make it soggy?

Thanks

Being in the UK I use King Edward. I guess Burbank Russet is the UK equivalent

The worcester suace is not used in enough volume to make the crisps go soggy. Maybe the equivalent of a few shakes in a bag of chips, and then spread out to dry

I'd love someone to try the diet coke dip before frying and report...

Edited by jackal10 (log)
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viaChgo

viaChgo

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Posted

My homemade chips didn't keep for more than a day or two.

Try drizzling a little truffle oil on the freshly fried chips & then grating Parm-Reggiano over them plus a little sprinkle of salt of course. Decadent. A great hors d'oeuvres.

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Anna N

Anna N

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...

Try drizzling a little truffle oil on the freshly fried chips & then grating Parm-Reggiano over them plus a little sprinkle of salt of course. Decadent. A great hors d'oeuvres.

Now there's an idea worth trying. :biggrin:

Anna Nielsen aka "Anna N"

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"Cooking is about doing the best with what you have . . . and succeeding." John Thorne

Our 2012 (Kerry Beal and me) Blog

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elyse

elyse

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Choice of variety is important, and late season potatoes, or ones that have been stored cold for some time will have more sugar content, and so darken quicker, and will need to be fried at lower temperatures to crisp before blackening.

I heard that if you store you potatoes in the fridge, you can take them out a few days before using them,and the sugars will revert back to starch. Is that true?

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claire797

claire797

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I'm dying to try the Diet Coke dip too. I'll give it a go this evening and report back tonight. I've been storing my potatoes in the refrigerator, so I'll make sure to start at an oil temp no higher than 350.

Just to clarify -- as I understand it, I need to heat the Diet Coke to 150 F and soak for only one minute, correct? Just making sure.

Hopefully, there won't be some nasty reaction with the Nutrasweet. I've read (note: I'm NOT AN EXPERT NOR TRYING TO BE ONE BUT HAVE READ!) that boiling Nutrasweet makes it bitter. Wonder if this will have and effect on the potato chips.

Just for fun, I may try using some regular Coke too. Maybe the sugar won't matter and I can avoid the whole boiled aspartame issue completely.

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tryska

tryska

Posted
Posted (edited)

doh.

the main reason for dipping in an acid solution is to retard blackening - so just squeeze a lemon into water and dip it in that.

same solution you would use to retard any other fruit or veggie's oxidation process.

Edited by tryska (log)
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claire797

claire797

Posted
Posted
doh.

the main reason for dipping in an acid solution is to retard blackening - so just squeeze a lemon into water and dip it in that.

same solution you would use to retard any other fruit or veggie's oxidation process.

Good point! I could just go with a squeeze of lemon or lime. Then again, that would leave out the phosphoric acid that the professionals use in their processing solution.

Not that this matters, really. Who knows?

If I'm firing up the deep-fryer, I might as well try all 3 methods -- Coke, Diet Coke, squeeze of lemon.

I'm also going to compare a non-refrigerated potato to one that has been stored in my vegetable draw.

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tryska

tryska

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Posted (edited)
Not quite.

The acid retards the Maillard reaction during frying. I don't know why its used warm - I took the method from Talburt and Smiths "Potato Processing", the standard text boook

so couldn't you still use lemon juice in water? it's still citric acid.

Edited by tryska (log)
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jackal10

jackal10

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I think it would be too dilute.

Straight lemon juice might do it.

The objective is to delay the browning so the potato crisps before the sugars colour.

My guess us the sugar coke will colour quickest, then the cold stored potato, then the ordinary potato then the acid dipped ones, with crispness and keeping in reverse order.

I'm fascinated to see how it turns out...

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claire797

claire797

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Results are in! I took pictures, but thought I'd just go ahead and give you the results since it takes me eons to upload pix.

Jackal was right on the money. Here they are ranked according to taste.

Plain potato, not soaked -- right off the bin -- Excellent. Cooked at 350 for 6 minutes and had just the right amount of crispness.

Potato that had been refrigerated and soaked in slighly (not much) diluted lemon juice -- Very good, cooked in 6 minutes, browned a little faster, but wasn't quite as tasty

Potato that had been refrigerated and soaked in water only -- Browned in about 5 minutes and just weren't as tasty.

Potato that had been refrigerated and soaked in regular Coke for 1 minute -- Forget it. Burnt to a crisp after 6 minutes. Browned quicker then crisped so had to throw out most of the batch

I couldn't find any Diet Coke in today's travels and didn't go out of my way looking for it because cooked Nutrasweet still gives me the heebie jeebies :wink: .

Guess this wasn't very scientific, but we had fun playing around.

My only real conclusion is that I need a mandoline. I had a hard time getting the potatoes sliced evenly.

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