Perfect Chips!

As in kettle chips or french fries or whatever else you want to call them. I love them. They might be one of my favorite foods, which is a bad thing for a girl trying to plan and get fit for a wedding. But I digress, just because I must limit my intake of delicious golden-fried-chips, doesn't mean I should keep the secret of making them perfect to myself. So below I will outline my process. It is pretty much the same if you are making a french fry or a round dollar chip, or super thin chips. Just the time in the fryer will change, so it takes about 5-6 minutes for fries, between 4-5+ for dollar chips, and only 3-4 minutes for thin sliced chips.

Tips:

• Perfectly clean oil in your fryer is not your friend. If you just cleaned your fryer and the oil is brand new, throw a couple frozen fries in the oil and let them cook before you start the actual chip making process. This dirties up the oil a bit and make more better cooking results. Not sure why, it just is.
• Checking the fries as they cook is important, they need to be shaken up and around to ensure they cook evenly.
• Do not overcrowd the basket or else you get a soggy fat mess. 
• The process I use is a double-fry one.  The fries will look like they are awesome after the first frying, but after about 2 minutes they become real limp. The double fry method works so well by first cooking the potatoes through once, and then cooking again to crisp up the outer shell. Creating that perfect french fry texture that would create a deadly poutine or great with just a bit of gravy.
• Allowing the cut uncooked chips to soak in ice cold water is also a very important step. It changes the internal water balance of the potatoes and helps make that crunchy shell happen,

Perfect Fried Chips!

So perfect, so yummy! These are crinkle cut russet potatoes (I have a crinkle cutting hand blade).

Ingredients:

• Oil for the deep fryer
• Salt
• Potatoes (I find usually that about 3 fist sized potatoes makes a heaping serving for 2 people)

Instructions:

1. Cut up the potatoes into fries, dollars, or chips,
2.  Place the cut chips into a bowl of ice water and allow them potatoes to chill out in the fridge for between 30 minutes to two hours.
3. Heat up the deep fryer until it is ready.   
4. Remove enough of the potato chips to fill your fryer basket and pat them dry. 
5. The dryer the better they will fry.
6. Follow the guide for cooking times.

French Fries
Shake the basket after 3 minutes
Should be cooked after six minutes total cooking time

Dollar Chips
Shake after 2 minutes
Should be cooked after 4 minutes total cooking time

Thin Chips
Shake after 1 minute
Should be cooked after 3-4 minutes total cooking time

Keep in mind that fryer temps vary between units so these times are just an estimate. Remember to always keep a close on a working deep fryer to prevent nasty accidents.

1. After cooking the chips once, spread them out on a cooking rack covered with paper towels to drain the fat. 
2. Allow the blanched chips to cool for roughly 10 minutes.  
3. After ten minutes repeat the cooking process.  
4. This should crisp up the chips and they are ready to eat now!

Enjoy!