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

FAQs

Why are my homemade oven chips soggy? ›

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.

Floury potatoes contain much less moisture but can fall apart if overcooked. 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.

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.

Parboil the potato chips, skin on, for about 10 minutes in boiling salted water. Heat some olive oil in a frying pan, smash the garlic bulb and chuck in the cloves, then add the potato chips. Toss in the oil and season with pepper. Bake on the preheated tray for 15 to 20 minutes until crispy and golden.

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.

Turn the heat up under the oil and return one blanched chip to the oil as a guide again. Once it's floating and golden the temperature should be about 180°C, which is perfect for frying and will give you chips with those all-important crispy outsides and fluffy middles.

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.

Oil and Fat Content

While are baked potato chips really healthy and oil-less? It does have no oil in the cooking process–potato slices are baked. Compared with fatty deep fry, bake is the more healthy way to cook food.

Yes! Rinsing the chips in cold water helps to remove excess starch, and will make them crispier and keep them from becoming dark brown. It's also a good idea to soak the chips in a bowl of cold water for at least 30 minutes, which will help to further remove the starch.

Don't salt the oil, and don't overcrowd the pan, or the oven. Steam is the arch nemesis of the crispy chip. Cook the chips at a high temperature, and turn them halfway through. You can finish with a blast of the grill for extra crunch.

How do you pimp up oven chips? ›

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.

The key to the perfectly crisp oven chip is to save the seasoning until the end of cooking. This is because salt draws out water – in lots of other dishes this intensifies the flavour of each ingredient, but with chips, it can make them turn soggy as they cook.

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.

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.

To begin with, Magda recommends cooling the leftover chips as soon as possible, putting them in the fridge with a "loose cover" to prevent bacteria growth. It is vital the chips are dry when you reheat them, this can be done by patting them with a kitchen towel or by using salt to draw out any excess moisture.