Always Order the Chips
Why the perfect chip depends on where you are, what you’re eating, and what you’re dragging it through - with 3 sauces
Now that we’ve laid the groundwork on potatoes, which many of you seemed to really enjoy, it felt only right to follow it up with something a bit more specific.
Chips.
I think, as a food group, I could eat chips every single day. In fact, I suspect I probably do. If you tracked my eating over the course of a year, I wouldn’t be surprised if chips appeared in some form in about 80% of it. Not always as the main meal, sometimes just a few on the side, sometimes stolen off someone else’s plate, sometimes standing in the kitchen before service.
When I was pregnant for the first time, I ate them almost daily. Always on my own (weep), always covered in an obscene amount of vinegar. I’d go to Wilsons, my local chip shop, and ask them to wrap them tight so the vinegar would steam into the potato. It would leave this brown line running through the chip, just under the skin, properly soaked in. That’s how I liked them.
There’s something about chips that feels both deeply personal and completely universal. My friends who know me laugh at my love of chips, they know that I will always want to order MORE chips out of fear that we won’t have enough. I like an abundant amount of them, I don’t want to act politely around them.
What makes a perfect chip?
I think the idea of a “perfect chip” is slightly misleading, because it really depends on context.
Where you are, what you’re eating it with, how hungry you are, even the time of day - all of that changes what you actually want from a chip. The chip you crave wrapped in paper, soaked in vinegar on a cold afternoon is not the same chip you want alongside a piece of grilled fish, or next to something rich that needs cutting through.
For me though, at its best, a chip is about contrast.
A crisp outer shell that shatters slightly when you bite into it, giving way to something soft, fluffy and almost collapsing in the centre. Not dry, not waxy. It should feel like it’s just holding itself together.
Colour matters too. Not pale, not aggressively dark. Somewhere in that golden space where you know it’s going to be crisp but not bitter.
We cut ours thick. Thick ish kind of, long and in the middle. Thin chips have their place, but I think thicker-cut chips give you that contrast properly, especially when you’re eating them with other things and need something to carry sauces, to mop, to drag through whatever’s on the plate.
I always think about those thick Cypriot chips made with Cyprus potatoes, fried for a while, often a bit irregular, sometimes with the skin on. They’re not delicate. They’re built for eating with grilled meats, with oregano, with lemon, with something smoky and salty. They properly hold their own. You need that kind of chip in that setting. Chef Selin Kiazim used to make the best chips at her former London restaurant, Oklava. I miss that place.
And then there’s seasoning. Fine salt, while they’re hot, tossed properly not sprinkled timidly over the top. Chips need confidence!
The reality of chips in a restaurant
