National chip week, 12-18 February 2007.

Chips. By which I mean freshly cut up and, quickly fried fingers of potato. Yes, vegetables. Real food. I do not mean the little processed, flat snack crisps that get called chips in the USA. Nor do I mean the tiny and incredibly vile little things they serve up in fast food places, made of powdered and reconstituted potato and about three thousand additives. No, I am talking about real chips. Go on, you know you want to.

I don’t have a deep fryer (all that hot fat, too scary…) but here’s my recipe for home made chips:

Heat up your oven nice and hot. About 200 – 220 degrees C (400-425 F, or gas regulo 6-7). Now peel some big potatoes suitable for frying or roasting. Maris Piper are rather good. Slice them into big fat fingers (you could also do wedge shapes if you want posh chips) and dunk them swiftly into a pan of boiling water. Drain them and toss in a dry tea towel.

Now toss the chips in sunflower oil until they are coated generously. (Don’t use olive oil, it doesn’t do too well at high temperatures). Spread out on a baking sheet. Bake till they are golden brown, crispy on the outside and soft in the middle. The timing depends on the size of your chips and the heat of the oven, but somewhere between 20-30 minutes is about right. Yum.

And before you start on about them being bad for you, check this out:

A 100g portion of oven chips contains just 4.2g of fat – that’s less than a chocolate digestive at 4.3g fat, a small pot of natural yoghurt at 4.5g fat or a jam doughnut at 10.9g fat.

An average portion of battered cod and chips has fewer calories, at least half the saturated fat and just a tenth of the salt of a cheese and tomato pizza.

Link: Chip Facts & Figures.