Yesterday I criticized Zoya for buying pre-made salad dressing in a bottle. It was organic and all that (Annie's Brand) but I pointed out that we could make it ourselves - only better and without all the packaging. She pointed out the bag of Sour Cream and Onion potato chips sitting on the counter that I had recently purchased. Touche! or is that detente?
In any case, in the interest of doing our thing to save the planet I decided it's time to create our own potato chips. Zoya flatly stated that it will not be possible to home-create something as sublime as sour cream and onion potato chips. I set out to prove her wrong.
This evening I took one of the large 'yukon gold like' potatoes that we grew in our garden and used a mandolin to thinly slice it into a pot of water. I then heated up the pot until warm. I wanted to wash off the extra starch and partially cook the chips, but I did not cook them completely for fear they'd start to fall apart. In actuality I barely cooked them - I could put my finger in the water at the end and it was not very hot at all. I poured them into a colander to drain and heated up the wok with about an inch of canola oil in the bottom.
I then dropped a few slices of potato into the hot oil. I waited until the oil was hot enough that they sizzled when added to the oil. I cooked them for a while and then put them onto a dry paper towel. The first batch was all oily and limp - so for the second batch i cooked them longer. I noticed that at a certain point they stopped sizzling and turned light brown. I started to take them out of the oil at this stage and lightly add a pinch of kosher salt immediately after removing them from the oil. They turned out AWESOME. Crunchy and light. Who knew that potato chips would be so easy to make? I was also amazed at how many chips one l could create from one large potato. It made me realize that a big bag of potato chips is really only a few large potatoes.
Nonetheless, Zoya was right. I have not been able to re-create the sour cream and onion flavor. Mine were kosher salt flavor, and I think it should be easy to add a little sesame oil to the wok to get a more oriental flavor. In the next few days I plan on experimenting with potato chip seasonings. I will post what I learn.
2 comments:
The restaurant next door to where I work makes its own potato chips. They make them with white potatoes and with sweet potatoes. I'm not a big chip fan but when I had a sandwich from there the other day, I did eat a few and they were good. Not as salty as bagged chips.
I'll have to try sweet potatoes - and how about carrots? Maybe pushing the envelope? I also learned that you're just supposed to soak the potato slices in COLD water. No need to heat at all.
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