Chips
Chips are crisp snacks most often made from thin slices of potato fried in oil or baked, then salted or seasoned. Most are fried on a moving line, while kettle chips are cooked in batches for a harder, crunchier bite.
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Torres - Selecta - 100% Extra Virgin Olive Oil Potato Chips - 50 g
Regular price $4.00 USDRegular price
How to choose Chips
- Kettle cooked. The label term for chips fried a batch at a time in a kettle of oil, where the oil temperature drops when the slices go in and then climbs back. Most other fried chips are cooked on a continuous line at a steady oil temperature.
- Fried or baked. Most chips are fried in oil, and some are oven-baked until crisp instead.
- Seal. Chips leave the fryer at about 2 percent moisture, so an open bag pulls damp from the air and softens. In 1926 a California chip maker began fusing two sheets of waxed paper into bags to store chips, an early step toward the sealed bag.
About Chips
Potato chips are thin slices of potato, or a dough of dried potato flakes, fried in oil or baked in an oven until crisp. Besides plain salted chips, common flavors include vinegar, barbecue, sour cream and onion, cheddar and spicy.
In a continuous plant, washed potato slices pass through oil held at roughly 325 to 385°F, and conventional chips leave with about 35 to 45 percent oil by weight. The mechanical peeler and the continuous fryer, both invented in the 1920s, let makers turn out chips in far larger quantities.
Keep bags closed and away from the stove and damp corners, and clip an open bag tight. Pour chips into a bowl beside cured ham, olives or a soft cheese, or crush a handful over a sandwich.
At a glance
- Also called
- Crisps; long sold as Saratoga chips
- Made from
- Sliced potatoes, or dried potato flakes for stacked chips
- Label terms
- Kettle cooked, batch fried, baked
- Common packing
- Sealed bags that keep out air and damp
Chips questions
What does kettle cooked mean on a bag of chips?
It means the slices were fried in batches in a kettle rather than on a moving line. When a batch of raw slices goes in, the oil temperature drops 50°F or more, then climbs back slowly; one patent gives 310°F as an example starting point. Patent filings describe the result as harder and crunchier than continuously fried chips, which are cooked in oil held at a steady temperature.
Who invented the potato chip?
Nobody can say for sure. An English cookbook printed a recipe called potatoes fried in slices in 1817. The famous tale names George Crum, a resort cook in Saratoga Springs, New York, and dates it to 1853, but food historians doubt it. The chips were long sold as Saratoga chips, and some still carry the name.
Why do some chips all look exactly alike?
Uniform stacked chips are not cut from a whole potato. Makers mix dried potato flakes into a dough and reshape it into identical pieces before cooking. That is why every chip in the tube matches, while chips cut from real potatoes differ in size, curl and color.
Sources: US patent filings on batch and continuous chip frying; History.com.
