When you’re in the mood and you’re looking to treat yourself, nothing beats homemade fries. Crispy, salty, dipped in some tomato sauce... heaven. Plus, they’re so simple to make!
However, if Nigella Lawson is anything to go by (and who wouldn’t trust this culinary queen?!) the tried and true method of homemade fries might actually not be the best way to make them, and we could be missing out on an even better method.
Personally, I’m all ears.
How to make homemade chips the Nigella Lawson way
In a recipe that Nigella calls ‘revolutionary’, instead of dropping your chopped potatoes into boiling hot oil, you drop them into, uh... cold oil. Yeah.
Nigella said: “It sounds crazy, but it works. You’d think it would make them unbearably greasy but in fact you end up with crisp, oil-free fries of utter fabulousness.”
So, to do this, you simply put 1 ½ litres corn oil or flavourless vegetable oil in a heavy-based pan and immediately add your chopped potatoes. Then, put the pan over a high heat and bring it to a boil.
You then need to continue to cook the fries, without stirring them, for another 15 minutes, by this point your pan should be bubbling ‘vigorously’.
Then, very carefully give the chips a gentle stir with a pair of tongs held in an oven glove, moving any that have stuck to the bottom or sides of the pan. Cook for another 5-10 minutes before testing a chip for taste.
Nigella warns that if you feel the chips possibly need a bit longer, keep a close eye on them as, “the chips can turn from a cooked gold to a burnt bronze quickly.”
Finally, gently place your chips onto kitchen roll to absorb excess oil before serving with flaky sea salt.
Yum.