The perfect chip

I can’t take credit for this recipe, although I wish I could. Heston Blumenthal is a “gastronomist” which means he uses science in his cooking. He uses it to match flavours, and to work out how best to cook something. Some of his stuff is a little over complex, but in this case all you need is time. Honestly, these chips do take quite some time to cook, but if you do it right, it’s damn well worth it.

Start with your potatoes. I still have no idea how to judge how many potatoes I need per person until I cut them up. Peel your potatoes and cut them into chips the way you like them. The first tip here is to not cut them too finely. The chunkier they are, the better this cooking technicque will work.

Boil the pre-cut chips. You can do it on the stove if you like, but I put boiling water in a microwave container and cook them in the microwave (sorry Heston). You want them to cook until they are ALMOST falling apart – but not. The more they are cooked, the lighter and fluffier the potato will be, but you need them to hold their shape.

Once they’re cooked, lay them out to cool. Make sure that the chips aren’t touching each other. Use a cooling rack or chopping board or another tray. They need to cool completely, so putting them in the fridge is a good idea. You really want them to go a bit cold, not just stay at room temperature.

Once they are cooled, get a wok or deep frier and get the oil HOT. Cook the chips in batches and set them to cool again, this time on paper towel to soak up the oil. The best chips are double-cooked, and that’s what we’re doing here. That means you can prep the chips to this stage ahead of time and do the second cook just before you serve.

There is a bit of a trick to the first cooking stage. Heston is so precise, he stipulates what temperature the oil should be for each cooking stage, but I can’t do that. I’m sure if you head over to his website, you could probably find the temps, but my chips are pretty damn good without going the full monty.

When you cook the chips the first time around, you don’t want to cook them completely. You need them to START going golden brown, but not fully cooked. When you cook them the second time, they will cook quickly and brown-up even quicker. All you’re really doing here is crisping up the outside a bit to hold the fluffy potato together.

Right, so once the chips are all cooked, set them to cool again, even putting them back in the fridge if you want. Make sure they go below room temperature again before cooking them for the second time.

Reheat your oil and get it hotter than the first stage, if you can. Cook the chips again until they are the perfect golden brown colour, then take them out, put them on a board and salt them while they are still hot, and while they still have some residual oil on them. Then serve them ASAP while they’re still super hot. These chips are the perfect accompaniment to my steak recipe.

If you follow this process completely, and you’re cooking chips for a family of four, it could take around three hours in a home kitchen. I told you it was time consuming, but let me just say that the chips are F**KING AWESOME. Perfectly crispy on the outside, perfectly fluffy in the middle. The first time I did these, it took me all morning, and we had them with lunch at 1pm.

My family loved them and asked for more – but of course there was no way in hell I was doing it all again before dinner. You can cut this time down a bit by not letting the chips cool completely between each stage. Boiling them takes about five minutes in the microwave, and each frying stage takes about 10 minutes, so it’s possible to achieve a B grade version for any meal. Just remember to ALWAYS double-cook your chips. It’s the only way to get crispy outside, fluffy inside.

Cooking

This post is a little off-topic for me, but considering the traffic I got after posting my handy hints on being a better partner, I thought I should throw in the odd good post, rather than rant all the time.

My girlfriend has a food blog, and it does exceptionally well. I’m not going to give you the address, because I doubt she would want her successful, respectable site associated with mine. And who can blame her, right? But the thing is, I do some cooking, too, and from the feedback I have received so far, I do alright.

What I’d like to do here is get some of you blokes cooking steak properly. Don’t switch off right now, because you’ll be surprised at how easy it is to cook an amazing steak.

Step 1: Get away from Well Done. Seriously. I used to eat my steak that way as well, and when you steer away from it, you’ll kick yourself for having eaten ruined steak all these years. And feel free to thank me.

Step 2: Use a good cut of steak. I like sirloin, because if often doesn’t have fat on the outside, but should have some in the middle. Fat adds flavour, which is why everyone loves that marbled look of wagyu or angus.

Step 3: Simple is the best. The best way to prep a great steak is to leave them out of the fridge for about 10 minutes to bring them close to room temperature. Don’t worry, it’s not going to get covered in bacteria that will make you sick. Making a steak go straight from the fridge to the pan will take away some of the flavour of it. Many chefs and butchers will actually tell you to leave it out for 20 minutes, or even more!

Step 4: Turn the pan on, and let it get HOT. So don’t use a pan that’s too expensive, like Scanpan or Rado. Those pans get hot (but not HOT) although they do hold their heat very well.

Step 5: Prep the steak. Lay the steaks on a chopping board, or even leave them in the plastic tray. Season them well with GOOD salt and pepper. I use Maldon salt (it’s sea salt flakes) and ground peppercorns – they have MUCH more flavour than the refined supermarket-brand crap. Then pour about a teaspoon or so of GOOD extra virgin olive oil over each steak. By putting the oil on the steak, and not in the pan, you will reduce the smoking.

5a: Here’s the secret. Using two fingers, rub the seasoning and oil into the steak. You want to apply a little pressure, because what you’re doing here is actually breaking the sinew and muscle in the steak. This will make it more tender when you eat it. Don’t press too hard though. The steak should kind of squash a little under your touch, but you don’t want it to start breaking apart.

5b: Turn the steaks over and do the same on the other side.

Step 6: Wait for the pan to get HOT. This will all depend on your stove, the pan and how long it took you to prep the steaks. You might need to wait another couple of minutes. To test it, drop a little oil in the pan, and it should become viscous almost immediately.

Step 7: Once the pan is HOT, put the steaks in the pan. Let them sear for about 15 seconds, flip them over and turn the pan down a bit. Now leave them for a while and don’t f**k with them. After a few minutes, you’ll see some blood-stained liquid coming to the surface of the steak. Once that happens, flip the steaks and don’t f**k with them.

Step 8: If a lot of liquid comes to the surface again, flip them once more. You want a little bit of liquid on the surface, but not too much. When a little but comes to the surface, I flip them once more for about 5 seconds and then take them out of the pan. Get a clean plate or board and let the steaks rest for a couple of minutes before serving. More juice will come out while they are resting.

Step 9: Serve with your favourite sides. My next post will be how to cook the perfect chips – as taught by Heston Blumenthal. If you don’t know who he is, look him up. He applies science to cooking and produces the technically perfect meal.

If you’ve cooked these steaks right, they will be a little pink in the middle. You MIGHT get a little blood on your plate, but not a whole lot, and it won’t freak people out. I’ll explain a few of the concepts of this process to help you better understand WHY I do what I do.

As I said, using your fingers helps break down the muscle and sinew in the steak and makes it tender to eat. EVERY time you cook steak, do this as a minimum. It can even help turn a cheap cut into something edible.

Putting the oil on the steak instead of in the pan will stop all the smoke. That’s a huge tip for if you’re barbecueing, or cooking dinner for your parents or partner. Nothing ruins a “special” meal quicker than smoke in the dining room, and smoke alarms going off.

When you cook steak, it “tenses up”. Think about when you touch something really hot. Your finger or hand jumps away, and that happens by a massive contraction of muscle. This happens when you cook a steak, which is why it always comes out smaller than when you put it in. By allowing it to rest, the muscle in the meat relaxes and creates more “space” in the meat which is why it is tender.

By not cooking the steak to Well Done, you leave in some of the flavour of the meat, and some of the natural texture. If you want, you can look up the interwebs and it will tell you how many minutes to cook a steak for each ‘level’, but I just make it up. If you over cook steak, it dries out, goes chewy and loses all the flavour. Believe it or not, there is a difference in taste between grain fed, grass fed, etc.

Don’t f**k around when cooking. Every time you turn meat, it has to re-heat from the bottom. That means you end up with a chewy outer and a raw inner. Flip them once or twice and that’s it.