Home Made Oven Chips | Community Recipes | Nigella's Recipes (2024)

FAQs

What is the secret to the best chips? ›

The secret to a crunchy outside layer and a soft, fluffy centre is cooking your chips three times. “Boil the potato sticks in boiling water till tender, then cool and dry on paper towel,” Camillo says. “Next step is to fry them in a fryer at 150°C until lightly browned and allow to cool again.

Starch on the surface of the chips locks in moisture and causes them to go soggy. Drain the chips and rinse under cold water, then dry thoroughly before cooking. 2. Using enough of the right oil.

The Double-Fry Method

When it comes to the actual cooking, you want to fry the french fries twice. The first round is at a lower temperature to cook the inside of the potato and the second time you'll use a higher temperature to make the fries golden brown and crispy.

The difference lies in their starch content and structure. Waxy potatoes are amazing for boiling as they keep their shape, but floury potatoes fry up crisper. Use a floury (also called mealy) potato such as Russet or Shepody for your chips and you'll have better success.

The key to the perfect chip, is to use a floury potato like King Edward or Maris Piper, and ensure they're cut into evenly sized, uniform fries. This means you'll get evenly cooked chips at the end with a crispy outer shell, but a soft and fluffy centre, rather than the half frazzled, and half undercooked.

Add herbs and spices for extra flavor.

"Add a bit of gourmet flair to your fries by sprinkling them with some garlic powder, fresh rosemary, seasoned salt, or fresh virgin-olive [oil] or truffle oil," Koeppe said. As well as adding flavor, a drizzle of oil can also help keep fries from sticking together in the oven.

For chips, we recommend using a maincrop floury potato, like a Maris Piper, which will give you a fluffy inside and crisp outer coating. They will absorb the oil when fried to give you the crunchy chip you're looking for.

Put oven chips on a large baking tray. Drizzle over vegetable oil and sprinkle over smoked paprika, smoked or regular sea sealt flakes, dried rosemary, a small pinch of cayenne pepper and garlic granules; toss well to coat. Bake the chips to pack instructions until golden and crisp.

Both oven-baking and air-frying your chips limit the amount of oil you're using, so these are healthier ways to cook chips. '' Deep-fried chips are generally considered tastier because they contain more fat (more on that below), but if you're going to deep-fry food, it's worth being wary of the oil you're using.

Make your own: The best way, as always, to ensure that you're getting the healthiest food possible is simply to cook your own at home. Preparing your own chips from scratch can be done fairly easily, though it's best to avoid the conventional method which uses a deep fryer and copious amounts of vegetable oil.

Why won't my oven chips brown? ›

If the oven isn't hot enough to brown the chips on the 'air-side', or if there's not space for the heat to circulate around each chip, they'll be unevenly crisp. Deep-frying also means the oil can penetrate the craggy, broken edges on all sides to make an extra crisp surface.

Having hot oil is key to getting the potatoes not to stick to the tray and getting a perfect crisp skin. Toss the chips in the hot oil, salt, and place back into the oven. Cook for 20-25 minutes until golden. That's it – there isn't anything more to it.

If they're not quite as crispy as you'd like, this is almost always because they need more time to cook or they are overcrowded on the oven tray.

Spread a layer of store-bought kettle cooked potato chips on a baking sheet and sprinkle with finely grated Parmesan cheese (Pecorino also works well). Grind some black pepper on top, then do another layer. Think of it like making nachos: you want every chip to get at least a little bit of action from the toppings.