As a child I loved my mum's homemade chips, we didn't have them on a weekly basis and that was probably much to do with the fact that the cooking process was quite labour intensive, but when we had them, boy did we enjoy them!
Chips are no longer a treat - quite literally! Partly cooked, frozen fries have become a convenience food which not only taste pretty ghastly, but contain high levels of carcinogenic chemicals. Many brands use trans-fats which are uncommon in nature and are created artificially.
The traditional method for cooking chips was a two - stage process, in which chipped potatoes were blanched in oil at a relatively low temperature to soften them and then a higher temperature to crisp the outside.
English chef Heston Blumenthal became obsessed with the idea of the perfect chip and began working on the recipe in 1993, he wanted 'chips with a glass-like crust and a soft, fluffy centre.' he developed the idea of triple cooked chips which have become de rigueur in any restaurant worth its sort.
Personally, as with most food, I would rather have the real thing cooked from scratch occasionally, than the processed, inferior thing, regularly. This is no bad thing, Micheal Pollan suggests that we enjoy treats as often as we are willing to prepare them from scratch, as he says 'Chances are good it won't be everyday.' And that's how it was when I was a child, we ate cake and chips, but because they were cooked from scratch, not everyday.
Chips
Recipe
6 large potatoes, preferably Maris Piper
Lard or vegetable oil
Sea salt
Place chipped potatoes in a bowl and rinse under running water for 5 minutes to reduce starch, drain and dry in a tea towel
Heat a deep pan no more than half filled with oil to 130c
Fry chips in small batches for 5 minutes
Remove chips from pan with slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper
Heat oil to 180c and fry chips until golden, approximately 7 minutes, drain, sprinkle with sea salt and serve immediately
You know, eighty per cent of the food in supermarkets today didn't exist 100 years ago! I recently cooked a bag of supposedly 'extra special' oven chips, the irony was they cost more than six fresh potatoes. I left them overnight and in the morning they had become hard, nevertheless, I blended them down to feed to the birds, (birds like mashed or crumbled potatoes, especially in winter.) The birds didn't touch them which I thought was quite telling! Even my greedy fat pigeon wouldn't eat them, yet many parents are feeding their unsuspecting children on oven chips on an almost daily basis.
'We do children an enormous disservice when we assume that they cannot appreciate anything beyond substandard, nutritionally marginal, kid targeted convenience foods. Our children are capable of consuming something that grew in a garden or field, or on a tree. They are capable of sitting through dinner at a table with tablecloths and no climbing equipment! Children deserve quality nourishment.'
- Victoria Moran
Love Donna xxxxxxxxxxxx
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