Chips are a pain to do. After reading a few sources I settled on following the most tedious, that is, Heston Blumenthal’s recipe. (You can actually see the book in the background in the picture below.) There’s not a whole lot of choice when it comes to potatoes in Singapore so I went with the trusty old Russets.
The general steps were to:
1. Peel, cut and rinse.
2. Steam until tender.
3. Dry.
4. Blanch in 130 °C oil.
5. Dry.
6. Fry in 190 °C oil.
Controlling oil temperature is still a bit of a black art for me but I think my thermometer is reading 5-10 °C too low and my fries took on too much colour in the blanching process. You can see the test fries below, they were pretty good but not exactly mind blowing. The crust was crumbly and crunchy but the interior was too dry and lacked texture of fluffy potatoes I was hoping for. Still, not too bad for a first attempt.
The cod was done in the same batter prescribed in the tempura post a few months back. By the time I done mine (the cook eats last!), the beer has sort of fizzled out but the first few servings had much puffier coating. I was quite proud of my control of the cooking time. The fish came out yielding and moist. Then again, cod is a pretty forgivable fish to cook.
Still, there’s lots of room for improvement so hang in there for Round 2...
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