The Girl Who Ate Everything

Blogging about food and whatever since 2004.

'tato chip overdose

I just mentioned that i was addicted to potato chips right? So what does one do upon that realization? Stop eating potato chips!

...or. MAKE ONE'S OWN POTATO CHIPS!

As you can see, I'm a moron. Today I received A New Way to Cook for my upcoming "advanced foods" class (methinks I need to retake "intro") and I stupidly decided to skim through it. And the devil was on my side, so in a 700+ page book, I landed on a potato chip recipe. And I thought "HEY, I LIKE POTATO CHIPS AND I HAPPEN TO HAVE POTATOES! ALRIGHTY." (Thoughts takes place all in caps in my brain. It's loud and raucous in there, full of shouting and potatoes and tomfoolery.)

I don't cook much nor do I enjoy it much, unless i'm making cake (but anything like cake is out since I'm not eating wheat, yesss?). I did as the recipe said, except for some key things, like slicing the potato thinly enough (IMPORTANT PART, but my slicing thingy couldn't make them that thin) and drying them well, ending up in an hour of baking three batches of potato chips that mainly came out limp or only came out crunchy if I burned 50% of the chip.

BOY. FUN. ...NO. I potato chipped about 5 potatoes (not very large; you can hold two in a hand, maybe three) and ate maybe four of them. But potato chips aren't hunger-appeasing, so I ended up eating some of my brother's potato chips also. And a pluot. And a plum. And some flan my great aunt brought over (it's the most ginormous flan I've ever seen, the size of a PIE). And some Green & Black's chocolate (I think I need to throw that out...seriously, just not tasting so good).

I would've been a lot better off just chopping up the potatoes and sauteing them. Instead, I spent much of my night staring into the mouth of my oven (through the oven door...um) as too-thick potato rounds sat there, soaking in the clarified butter (luckily, I had ghee and didn't have to actually clarify butter) I tossed them in.

It wasn't a complete failure, but it was more than 50% failure, thus it is branded FAILURE. And I shouldn't be making potato chips anyway. Thankfully they're just baked and I didn't toss em in a bucket of butter (and I didn't use seasoning since I like them that way), so they weren't deathly. But all that potato and fruit and flan and...still. The "potato chips" were saddening.

Now I feel like a potato. NO MORE 'TATO!

I thought potatoes would be a nice starch replacement but I think I'd rather eat yogurt, fruit, and whatnot.

Comments

Allen Wong / August 21, 2005 12:16 AM

Maybe you should invest in a madoline.

I'd rather use an oil than butter, and I'd definitely salt it a bit. I did that with some pita bread, and I just tossed them around with some olive oil, dumped onto a baking sheet, and stuck in the oven.

Jaay / August 22, 2005 12:46 AM

I feel your pain. I too have tried making my own potato chips several times. Most recently I tried a recipe from Barefoot Contessa. It was a miserable failure..and I had a mandoline slicer!! lol Per the instructions I oiled & preheated the pans and almost killed us all from the smoke & horrible smell of the burning oil. Ah but maybe one day right? lol

Anyway..great blog

suze / August 22, 2005 3:22 AM

how about frying? thats if you dont mind the splatter of oil... but they come out nice and crispy mmm chippiee

Wei-yang Wu / August 22, 2005 1:47 PM

Frying anything at home creates a horrible gease smell that lingers for years (ie. ever been to someone's house/kitchen that loves to stir-fry?).

As for me, I would also buy rather than make my own. Although for a while, I made my own popcorn which was quite good but I got lazy and went back to store bought. ;) Doritos are my weakness. Chips are ok, but anything w/ corn > me.

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