I hate those blogs where they try to look all cute and hip by posting recipes in their blog, as if they were twittering grandmas trading recipe cards like 7 year old boys trade baseball cards on the playground asphalt. That said...
Delicious Homemade Potato Chips
You may be familiar with potato chips. This strange phenomenon of at least the USA involves opening a bag half filled with air to find these dried out salted thin wafers of potato, which you then eat because it hurts to stop putting them in your mouth. I never really thought to improve on that, since I don't eat them hardly at all myself, but I sort of happened across this randomly one day when I was trying to figure out if potatoes could be pan fried.
My experience is: I have sliced potatoes before. That's it. This recipe can be considered relatively spontaneous.
Ingredients:
3 of those white thin skinned "mashing" potatoes About 15ml of vegetable oil per potato. Spices up the yin yang No Salt
First you set up two frying pans if you can, because these potatoes take up a lot of volume while cooking and take a long time to fry. Slice your potatoes as thinly as you can without getting shredded potato. I use a vegetable knife that's older than me, on a wooden cutting board. If your slice is less than 4mm thick, it'll probably work, but remember the thicker they are, the longer it takes to break their spirit. It works best when all the potatoes are the same thickness, since they take the same time to cook.
With 3 potatoes you should end up with a whole cutting board full of astringent potato slices. Heat up your frying pans and roll a little oil around in them. Place the potatoes as densely as you feel comfortable, in the pans. I have yet to get burned doing this with my fingers. Make sure the stove is not on too strong, or your potatoes will brown on the surface surprisingly quickly; medium setting works for me (whatever "medium" means).
Once you have placed the potatoes, sprinkle two kinds of hardy cooking spice on them. If you must use green spices (i.e. herbs) then don't put them in until nearly the end. I usually only use spices that come from seeds or bark, since it's really hard to burn them. Mustard seed, allspice, onion powder, curry mixes, anise seed, ground cloves, black pepper, powdered chilis, carroway, those are some I use. I try to only use two spices per batch, to keep things from tasting like a battering ram.
Be very patient with these potatoes. You can't cook them fast, since they'll brown and blacken, so you have to simmer them in the oil comfortably for 20 minutes to a half an hour (guesstimate). That's per batch too, so all those potato slices still sitting on the cutting board are going to take more time. The good news is if you have the heat set right, you only have to pause to flip them once during the frying process.
It's fascinating to watch a thick slice of potato break down as it fries. They absorb oil, lots of oil. Less than you'd think though, since like I said 15ml seems about enough to cook a potato. People who deep fry these things are freaking nuts: they're going to end up with soggy, greasy, oil spattered monstrosities. Better to cook them in just enough oil, and let the heat do the talking. As the slice cooks, the starchy center will start to break down and soften, and at the same time the water will start to evaporate, and the oil will soak in. Eventually even thick slices collapse into relatively thin slices, with a modest veneer of spices and grease and a light browning at the thinnest edges.
It's okay if your potatoes get totally brown. Just not ideal.
So once you identify a potato that looks cooked through, and isn't soggy with water anymore, you spatula it onto a plate and cover the plate with a pan lid. Do this repeatedly. Replace finished potato chips with new slices, and add spices onto those new pieces. Add more oil when the pan looks dry. In the end the chips covered with the pan will have a surprising amount of moisture still in them, will be hot and fleshy with a nice well cooked bite and a refreshing fleur of spices.
I can eat these things like candy; which probably isn't good because of all that oil, but they go very well if you steam up a whole pan full of red chard, and also some kind of protein: either chili beans, or meat of some kind. I recommend mouse. This recipe feeds two people, with a handful of chips leftover. You can refrigerate them and microwave them later for a not-quite-as-crisp treat, or just eat them later like cold slices of pizza in the morning.
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