[Leica] The not so humble chip - was tucker down under

[douglas.sharp at gmx.de (Douglas Sharp)]

Chips are not JUST chips!!
Making a good chip is an art known to a select few chippies, I think 
Frank may agree, mostly in Yorkshire.
 It depends on the type of potato - in the UK there are even special 
chipping potatoes which have exactly the right starch/water
ratio to ensure a good tasty chip, but only if you do it right.
That's ony the first part, then the have to be peeled and chipped, 
salted   and kept in salt water, preferably overnight, until the moment
of frying, this is to leach out excess starch from the surface of the 
chip, if you don't do it they get very soggy and taste awful.
The depth of the fat must be at least twice the depth of chips in the 
basket (otherwise they won't be free to move around while frying and 
they'll  not only stick together, the ones at the bottom of the basket 
will be brown and soggy, the ones at the top not cooked through)
The temperature of the frying fat is VERY important, the quality of the 
Yorkshire chip declined after beef dripping was banned (BSE)
from chip shops, sunflower oil or similar vegetable fats just don't 
reach a high enough frying temperature, pork dripping is an alternative
but takes on a flavour detrimental to the chips, High temperature 
taste-free oils (refined thistle, nut-oils) are just too expensive for 
use in bulk.
A chip is not a chip all over the UK, it was always disappointing to 
taste the chips that were sold anywhere south of Macclesfield.
Maybe the humble oatcake, still popular in the 5 Towns (Stoke, 
Longton,Burslem, Hanley and the other one I always forget), may become a 
viable alternative to F&C, tastes really good too, but I doubt it.
In the Eastend of London I always used to enjoy a good Savaloy (spicy 
smoked sausage) and chips, jellied eels weren't bad either.
Douglas
(whose cousin-in-law owned one of the biggest chip-fat suppliers in the 
North of England)

Daniel Ridings wrote:

>On 11/8/05, Frank Dernie <Frank.Dernie@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>  
>
>>One of the things I really miss is good fish and chips. Where I was
>>brought up in the North of England there were plenty of good fish and
>>chip shops. Here in the 24 years I have lived in Oxfordshire I have
>>only found one selling edible fish properly cooked and that is in
>>Newbury 14 miles away. If any LUGger knows any others please let me
>>know.
>>    
>>
>
>Frank, part of it is probably because of the Cod shortage.
>
>I cut out a recipe for good fish and chips (well, mostly the fish
>part, the chips part ... are just chips). I can't get a good portion
>here either. There was a guest chef (from London) visiting and he
>published his way of doing fish and chips.
>
>Just gotta do it yourself I guess.
>
>Daniel
>
>
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