Chips

For the lemon salt:
Zest of 1 lemon
4Tbsp sea salt

Sunflower oil
800g Potatoes, peeled and cut into fine matchsticks
A few sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked

To make your lemon salt, bash and mix together the lemon zest with the salt in a pestle and mortar or Flavor shaker until the salt is flavored, colored and fine. Place in a dish. Whatever you don’t use can be dried out a stored. If it gets hard, crush it up a bit before putting it into a jar.

Heat 2-3 inches of sunflower oil in a sturdy pan and bring to deep frying temperature. You can do this by using a thermometer, or by placing a small chunk of potato into the cold oil before you begin to heat it. When the potato is floating and a dark golden brown the temperature will have reached 180c/350f and you’re ready to begin frying.
Pat the potatoes dry with some kitchen paper to remove any excess starch. Making sure you’ve got a slotted spoon and a big pile of kitchen paper to one side, carefully place some of your potatoes into the pan of oil (don’t overcrowd) for a couple of minutes till golden brown and crisp. Cook the potatoes like this in batches until they are all used up. Add the rosemary for the last 30 seconds. Remove the chips and rosemary to the kitchen paper to soak up any excess oil, and then dust with the lemon salt. Serve straight away.

This is really just a basic chip recipe, but I had never made chips before, or ever deep fried anything at all. I figured it was about time I got over my fear of it, and these chips, because they are the extra thin kind, looked a bit more fool proof then regular chunky ones, therefore, they make a good jumping off point.

It was so much fun. When you drop them in, the oil goes crazy, it’s all crazy bubbles. I could tell the batch was getting close to done when all the craziness died down. I found that I had to stir them a bit when they first went in, otherwise they would stick together a little, but a moving them around some in the first minute or so made it fine.

The Jamie Oliver twists to it (it was his recipe), were the rosemary, which I thought added a nice smell in the kitchen, but I didn’t really notice it in the flavor, and the lemon salt. Lemon salt ROCKS! I tried a chip when the first batch came out, and it was good, I liked it. Then I added the lemon salt and they became the best chips ever! There was a mountain of them and they all disappeared so fast. I liked them so much that I made them again the next day, and I tried using a sweet potato too. It worked just as well, though it took a bit longer to cook.

Make these chips, and do not forget the lemon salt whatever you do!