Chips, Not Fries!

Hmm, I'll see if I can find a better link later.

Otherwise, search for a program called Botany of Desire.
 
buckytom said:
Hmm, I'll see if I can find a better link later.

Otherwise, search for a program called Botany of Desire.
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Ok. I thought you could only find one type of potato.
But yes, there are many farms that do one thing for one consort.
 
Ken Natton said:
In any case, we have no deep fat fryer or chip pan in our house, so the only chips we have at home are oven chips – long way short of ‘proper’ chips I accept.
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No chip pans in this house either, but I did treat myself to one of these last year, perfectly adequate for one or two people unless they are a piglet like me :giggle: Nice pic of French fries on the box :laugh:
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It cost £16.95 in Aldi, and has a thermostat. I've only used it about once or twice a month so far, and only for chips. I've never had any problems with it but it's never left unattended. By the time the chips are cooking, I'm in the kitchen preparing whatever I want to go with them anyway.

I never realised how horrible oven chips tasted until I went back to real chips from real potatoes, although I do have a pack of particularly thick McCain oven chips in the freezer in case I run out of potatoes, and they don't taste too bad. I find a lot of oven chips are too greasy for my taste, particularly supermarket own brands, and I've so far resisted buying the ones that can be cooked in the oven or fried.
 
Rocklobster said:
Tell me...do you guys blanch your chips first or do you just fry them up in one go?
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Depends how much time I've got, but I either blanch them or I soak them for about 20 minutes. I never fry them in one go; they don't look right - too brown - presumably from all that starch in them.
 
Rocklobster said:
Tell me...do you guys blanch your chips first or do you just fry them up in one go?
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Twice cooked or thrice cooked is a thing over here! I think thrice cooked means blanching first. Then they are part-fried and removed from the fryer to drain and stand for a few minutes, then plunged back in again. I use the twice cooked (last two steps) which seems to work for me. I haven't tried blanching - although if I cook 'oven chips' then I would. Oven chips are really roast potatoes in another shape - an roast potatoes work best if par-boiled first.
 
morning glory said:
........and roast potatoes work best if par-boiled first.
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I agree with that. About 5 minutes in the boiling water works for our Chinese potatoes here.

[However, I do not parboil if I use the slow cooker to roast them, e.g. paprika potatoes

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morning glory said:
Twice cooked or thrice cooked is a thing over here! I think thrice cooked means blanching first. Then they are part-fried and removed from the fryer to drain and stand for a few minutes, then plunged back in again. I use the twice cooked (last two steps) which seems to work for me. I haven't tried blanching - although if I cook 'oven chips' then I would. Oven chips are really roast potatoes in another shape - an roast potatoes work best if par-boiled first.
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The description given for fries in the OP gives a fairly accurate description of how they're made.

Watching it might make you think twice about them.
 
buckytom said:
For me, the real problem with chips or fries in America is the monoculture of farming potatoes.
Far too mamy potato growers have all gone to growing the same type and size of potato, all to feed that fast food industry. All long and slender baking type spuds which make the best, longest fries.

It was a similar type of monoculture practice that helped cause the potato famine in Ireland in the 1840s, and now may begin to wipe out today's banana crop.
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It contributed to it, but wasn't the cause. The cause was blight, caught by the leaves and spread down into the roots. What's at the root the plants? It wasn't due to the same type of potato being sown across Europe.

The impact was felt more in Ireland than anywhere else in Europe, due to the dependency on the one crop as a food source. Treatments such as bluestone(Used the original myself) would have helped to a point. That point being when the first infected plants were found, at that point salvage what you could, leave the rest, and hope that what you'd dug didn't kill you.

It's believed that the cause of this blight is now extinct. But requires both leaves and crop grown in soil to spread.

As for farmers growing potatoes long and slender potatoes only. Where do you think the smaller ones end up? They have no more control over how spuds grow underground than they do the weather. Of the 4,174 cultivated varieties, how many can you name?
 
Interesting stuff, thanks.
Although, I've thought that the reason the blight was so intrusive was that the farmers of the south of Ireland, especially the south west, all grew the same type of potato which was particularly susceptible to the blight. There are also political reasons for An Gorta Mor, but that an impolite discission herein.

However, of those 4k varieties, South Americans - the original peoples to have cultivated spuds - have always grown many varieties presumably having learned about potato blights.

But these are just theories.
 
buckytom said:
Interesting stuff, thanks.
Although, I've thought that the reason the blight was so intrusive was that the farmers of the south of Ireland, especially the south west, all grew the same type of potato which was particularly susceptible to the blight. There are also political reasons for An Gorta Mor, but that an impolite discission herein.

However, of those 4k varieties, South Americans - the original peoples to have cultivated spuds - have always grown many varieties presumably having learned about potato blights.

But these are just theories.
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Of those 4,000+ cultivated varieties, that's this century. With North American growers relying on just over a dozen varieties these days, for commercial needs.

You'd seldom sow only the one variety, even back then.

Blight catches part, kiss the lot goodbye these days.

Go back The West, beyond the Shannon and the land was considered too poor to feed a man and not good enough to bury him.
 
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