15 February 2020

Chips

The author of this humble Yorkshire blog does not exist solely on Yorkshire puddings. It may surprise you to learn that he does eat other things too.

One food item I have never liked is oven chips. I guess that Americans call them oven fries. You tend to find them in supermarket freezer aisles. They are generally packed in bulky  plastic bags with images of golden chips/fries on the front. You spread them on  a baking tray and whack them in a hot oven for ten or fifteen minutes and then shazzam! your chips/fries are done.

The trouble is, as I said before, I don't like them. We also never do any deep frying inside our house because of the resulting odours so hence we never have chips/fries at home unless we buy them from the local fish and chip shop.
A few weeks ago, I had an idea. What if I tried to make my own oven chips/fries? I peeled a large potato and then cut it into similarly sized chunky fingers. Next I brushed rapeseed oil on a non-stick oven tray. I put the potato chunks on the tray and then brushed them carelessly with more oil. A little seasoning and then I put the tray into the hot oven.

After five minutes I flipped the chips/fries over and then turned them over again after fifteen minutes. And after twenty minutes in total they were done - golden and ready to eat. The taste was great - just like proper homemade chips but with less oil involved in the cooking.

It's all very simple and I don't know why I had not thought of this process before. You can do the same with sweet potatoes and if you prefer you can make scallops instead of potato fingers. Visitors to Yorkshire Pudding are permitted to mimic this cooking technique completely free of charge!

27 comments:

  1. We just need your fish finger recipe now to go with them.

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    1. Eh? I thought that only small children ate fish fingers!

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  2. For a change of pace, add a bit of balsamic vinegar to the oil before brushing it on the potatoes. Isn't it nice to have cooking skills? That meal looks filling and delicious. So many folks these days, especially younger ones, are without basic cooking skills which would give them better meals at a lower cost.

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    1. Thanks for the balsamic tip Chef Jenny.

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  3. Thanks for the tip but I've been doing that for about thirty years now.
    I find it such a funny thing that y'all would eat an egg and beans and chips for dinner. I know it's done. I know it's traditional. Still- I would never think to combine those three foods for a meal. Maybe someday I'll try it. I could even get the kind of baked beans they sell here in the British section of the grocery store.

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    1. Egg, chips and Heinz beans? I don't have that very often but once in a while it is a nice option. No collards in sight!

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    2. But with collards it would be even better! :)

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    3. I agree, Steve. But it wouldn't be English, would it? It would be Southern-ish.

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  4. I won't show this to the MM as she is nuts about fries.

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    1. She's also nuts about retired teachers.

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  5. That looks like a proper English meal. My auntie was a vegetarian so beans, eggs and potatoes were her go to.

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    1. It isn't always roast beef with vegetables and the browning glory - Yorkshire Pudding!

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  6. I love oven fries like that and have been making them for quite awhile. I mix up a spicy seasoning mix and mix with the potatoes and a little olive oil and then bake. I have also gotten to where I love oven baked vegetables. I will slice up carrots, onions, bell pepper, squash and add in some small tomatoes then coat in oil and bake. This is also good over rice.

    You are clearly a very good cook and Shirley is a lucky lady. Cooking is one of my least favorite jobs. My husband loves to bar-b-q on the grill outside but I do most of the indoor cooking

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    1. Yes. I do enjoy cooking Bonnie. Nothing pleases me more than plating up a nice meal and then presenting it. I also like roasting vegetables - sometimes after a little spell in the microwave. Roasted carrots are much tastier than boiled ones.

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  7. Egg, chips and beans. My favourite. I once made some chips with tinned potatoes. That was a strange experiment.

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    1. I thought that such a meal would be far too exotic for Irish folk - even those, like yourself, who are only half Irish. Which half I wonder?

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  8. Your oven chips are not unlike my roast spuds, only that they are shaped more like wedges than like chips. I would not mind having the meal on your last picture! Right now!

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    1. If we lived in a StarTrek world, I could beam the meal over to you!

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  9. Like Librarian above I cut the potatoes in wedges, ie a large potato lengthwise in half, then each half, on a slant, into three "wedges". Essentially, three sides instead of your four. Which reminds me, and you may find vaguely amusing, when I serve the Angel (my son) anything with toast (two slices) I cut one on the diagonal, and one square, so he ends up with two triangles and two rectangles. The triangles stand for the father land, the rectangles for the motherland. You can't say fairer than that. Not just bi-lingual. Bi-toasted.

    Anyway, main reason for this comment, I have just been reading a bit of Librarian's back catalogue. Category Food. Comments. On which reading I learn, 5 Dec 2017, that you don't like goose. I quote YP "I don't like goose. It's one of the few foodstuffs I turn my nose up at."

    Why, YP, why? Goose is delicious. Not least because it renders so much fat in the roasting (good for roasting potatoes and other stuff) you'll reap the rewards for months to come. I get my Christmas Day goose from a renowned farm in Worcester where goose roam as geese do, and, after point of slaughter, are hung for seven or so days before dispatched to the customer. Sure, at £75.00 a pop for a 4.5 Kg goose (which, roughly, feeds about 2.5 people) is eyewatering, but wow. So please do let me know what your beef with goose is.

    As to duck. Again - what's wrong with you, YP? It's one of the easiest and most rewarding, no fuss birds to bring to the table. You don't need to go out to relish its culinary delight. Try Waitrose, they do legs and breasts (the former at a most reasonable price) - Gressingham no less.

    What adds to the hilarity (for me) of leaving you this comment is your son's Bosh two book gracing my desk this minute. Flicked (in the name of research through the lot, made plenty of notes). Can you ask him, please, for me, what's with the Maple in so many of their recipes?

    Eagerly awaiting your reply, on all counts,
    U

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    1. I like the idea of bi-toastedness!

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  10. I love proper chips. I rarely eat them although they can be a treat when I'm eating out. I inherited a deep fat fryer. It had a filter system that eliminated most odours. I hardly ever used it and it went long ago. Like you I'm not keen on oven chips. My wife used to make 'chips', usually round rather than cut lengthways, in the way you described.

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  11. Your heart thanks you!

    We never make chips at home. I get them at a pub now and then but even that is a fairly rare occurrence.

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  12. I usually do my chips that way...both potatoes and sweet potatoes (kumara).

    And, I am not embarrassed or ashamed to admit I also always have a packet or two of the frozen chips in my freezer. I buy the Aussie products made from Aussie-grown...and they are very good.

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