I must admit I’m not a huge fan of chips. Not many foods I leave on my plate but chips don’t quite do it for me. Love potatoes, don’t get me wrong: can sell my soul for a good mash, Jersey Royals make me sigh in bliss, all things dauphinoise or gratined yes please and I enjoy a good jacket spud. But chips – meh.
These are no ordinary chips though.
These are the famous, Heston Blumenthal’s triple cooked, fluffy on the inside, crispy on the outside (a bit like Tardis, or did I get it wrong?) chunky English-style wonders.
Cooked religiously by the book, ‘In Search of Perfection’ part one. Temperature of the oil measured by digital thermometer. Paying a fortune for copious quantities of groundnut oil. Risking ruin of the fridge by putting steaming chips into it. Soaking, de-starching, boiling, timing – all as if per eleventh commandment ‘thou shalt cook perfect chips’. Everything bar the vinegar aerosol in the air.
The only thing not quite right here is the type of spuds, I had my home-grown potatoes to use and they weren’t that floury – if you go and buy some regular Maris Pipers you’ll be laughing (with relief, after hours of slogging with boiling water and oil…).