Description
Homemade potato chips, with thermal help from On Food and Cooking, by Harold McGee, and soaking advice from Alison Roman at Bon Appétit.
Note: you can peel the potatoes if you like, but I like to leave the skins on for aesthetic reasons.
Ingredients
- 2 floury potatoes (Russet, Shepody, etc.)
- 1/2 C white vinegar
- Salt, fine is preferred to coarse
- Other seasonings, as desired
- Oil for frying
Instructions
- Slice the potatoes evenly, as thin as 1/16″ up to 1/8″ thick.
- Soak the potatoes in a few changes of water until you don’t see any more starch accumulating in the water.
- Give them one last soak in about 6 C of water with 1/2 C white vinegar. Let them soak like that for at least 30 minutes.
- Drain the potatoes and dry each slice. Laying them all on an absorbent cloth, then laying another cloth on top of them, works well.
- Heat 4″ of oil in a large, heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven. Use the probe from your ChefAlarm and set the high-temp alarm to 350°F (177°C) and the low-temp alarm to 250°F (121°C). Using fresh oil will result in lighter-colored chips.
- Prepare a draining rack set into a rimmed baking sheet, preferably with paper towels on it.
- When the oil is hot enough, drop a handful of chips into the oil. Stir them with a spider or heat-proof spatula to prevent them from sticking and cooking together.
- Adjust the heat as necessary to keep it within the cooking range, but don’t turn the heat all the way to high. It should take some time to get back up to 350°F (177°C).
- Cook the chips until they are golden brown and there are no more bubbles coming out of them in the oil. (Bubbles indicate boiling which indicates water.)
- Use a kitchen spider to remove the chips to your draining rack.
- Salt the chips and let them cool.
- Serve or store the chips in an airtight container. Enjoy!