I had a goal for 2024. That goal was to grow Hillstead Farm potatoes and turn them into kettle chips. I had hoped the Kennebec and Red Pontiac potatoes we have been growing for a few years would have …
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I had a goal for 2024. That goal was to grow Hillstead Farm potatoes and turn them into kettle chips. I had hoped the Kennebec and Red Pontiac potatoes we have been growing for a few years would have sufficient sugar content to make chips with and that they could be made into chips in the future to sell at the farm store. This was the hope. In the final days of 2024, I am happy to say, I achieved my goal and made the first of hopefully many batches to come.
We used tallow rendered from beef suet harvested from the farm. I had heard this was a superior cooking medium for chips and fries, and so I attempted to be true to the fast food of yesteryear. Since I was using the oil anyway, I decided to make a few fries while I was at it. I employed the same method explained below for the chips with a slightly different cook time due to the size and thickness of the cuts.
The biggest thing I learned from my experiment was that it almost doesn’t matter how deep your fry oil is, you can only cook with the horizontal space. That is the surface area of the oil. Your chips, fries, etc. will inevitably float once they begin to cook and will push each other out of the oil if there are too many. Also, the oil itself will drop far too fast in temperature and take too long to reheat if you try to fry too much product at once.
It was with this realization that I came to understand a big problem in my hopes for future mass production: I only had a small countertop fryer. To make pounds and pounds of chips, I would need a large, flat skillet with a few inches of depth, or a large cauldron or specialty fryer built to maintain temperatures and handle large quantities and reheat quickly.
Was I disappointed in my experiment? Not at all; to learn is to gain, and it didn’t affect the chips I made this time at all. After a short 15-minute fry time, I strained them out, tossed them in some sea salt in a metal bowl and spread them out on a rack to cool. The nice thing about chips is just how fast they cool. Five minutes later and the moment I had waited all year for was at hand. I held the first golden chip in my hand, inspecting the small crystals of sea salt on its surface to ensure it held the tiny morsels of sweet and salt flavor essential to its success. With great ceremony I handed another to my wife and raised mine in a kind of toast to our very first Hillstead Farm chips.
Crrruunncch!
While some would say “Eureka!,” I could only manage a muffled “Mmmm” as the solid crackling crunch satisfied the tactile judgment of my palate. It was everything I hoped it would be and more. Although labor intensive, and not fully honed as a cooking process. I had proof of concept and more importantly, a salty crunchy snack to share with my wife.
The way out here there’s food we feed ourselves to get by, and then there’s food that occupies our dreams for months on end. This simple and none-too-difficult recipe had been living in my subconscious for well over a year. Now, with a tray full of golden chips before me, I was finally able to digest not only the snack, but also the dream that had caused my mouth to water for so long.
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