For some months now I have been working on creating the perfect oven baked potato chip. On Wednesday nights we always have fish and chips. There are a few secret tips which I stumbled upon as a surprise to myself, and now I am going to share them with you. I make potato and sweet potato, when I make chips.
1. Cut Them Thick
The thicker you cut, the better the chips will stand up to the following steps – and in your baking dish. Above you see the mistake I made with the sweet potatoes, these should have been thicker.
2. Par-Boiling Is Key.
It is also the step where you can go the most wrong and overcook the potatoes. First, you want to use water that is actually boiling and pour it over your potatoes.
Then you need to set a timer and when it goes off, get those potatoes out of the boiling water stat. For me, I give the white potatoes 12 minutes, and the sweet potatoes 8 minutes. Unless I have my cordless headset on and totally forget what I was doing, which is what happened this week, my bad!
3. Let The Potatoes Cool Down.
You will get a much better crispy outer shell if you have the time to let the potatoes sit and cool. Preferably not in the container you are going to cook them in, because the steam will create water droplets which are Not Great for crispy. Preferably not in colanders sitting in the pots you just boiled them in, because that will take longer. I put my colanders on Ikea plates on the benchtop to let them cool.
4. Use A Good Cooking Spray.
You can pick whatever kind you like – me personally I find the Rice Bran Oil spray does not seem to overspray as much as the Extra Virgin Olive Oil but that might be because I have increased in talent and skill at using these things over time. Make sure to spray the bottom of your cooking dish.
If you don’t have spray you can do this the old way – coat the bottom of the cooking dish in your choice of oil, then make sure every surface of the chip gets coated in the oil. Because these are chips, that can be a time consuming process. It is worth investing in a good cooking spray. Mine tend to last a couple of months.
5. Add Your Spices!
We like plenty of cracked black pepper. Rosemary is great, parsley and paprika are our favourites. I do not put salt on ours before cooking these days because The Other Half is watching his sodium intake. I do put salt on mine once they are cooked.
6. Cook in the oven.
I always cook mine at 200C (392F). I cook them for 60 minutes. I do not mess with them – no flipping the chips, no touching at all. Yes, that seems like a long time to cook them but we like ours crispy. I have taken them out at 40 minutes before and they have been fine. You can probably get away with 30 minutes, especially if you used a metal cooking tray instead of ceramic or glass. I would suggest you take one out at 30 minutes and try it to see if it is cooked how you like it.
60 minutes works best for me because they get 20 minutes on their own, then I put the fish in for 20 minutes on one side, and 20 minutes on the other. The end result is a perfect level of crispiness for us.
On this occasion, because I had smaller sweet potatoes than usual and cut some of those chips too thin, they got a bit too crispy. But guess what? Next Wednesday night, I get to try again, and I will make them thicker..
That is what I love most about cooking – if you get it wrong this time, you can learn from it and make it better next time.
UPDATE – And they did turn out better next week –
I need to try this. I’ve tried making these before by winging it, but they never come out crispy. Now I know why: I need to par boil them!
Dawn – Parboiling makes them super fluffy and soft in the middle, and the cooking spray plus letting them cool takes care of the crispy. We actually prefer these chips now to even the deep fried from the shop kind. ;) And while it is a little time consuming with the cooling off, it does seem to make a difference in the end result. :)
I am on a big roasted sweet potato kick. We have them at least once a week. I will didn’t even guess I could make them crispy except that one time I forget the timer and they burned to a crisp.
LeAnn – Sweet potatoes seem to be a little more tricky to get crispy but this does seem to work well. And this week perhaps a little too well. Next week will be better! :)
Thank you!!! :) I never thought of par-boiling. Everywhere says to soak in cold water first…I made some a few days back and they were good, but not very crispy. I’m going to try your recipe the next time I make fries!!! They look amazing. What kind of fish do you use?
Rain – We love Hoki fish, and the other half is a big fan of deep sea perch if and when we can get it. But we will try anything boneless that is on special and not imported from places like Thailand. If I spot some nice prawns – shrimp – I often pick up a few of those for myself, too. Thanks for dropping by my place, I am enjoying your blog! ;)
We also try to get the fish locally. Some of the local markets often have freshly caught fish because there is a lot of ice fishing this time of year too. We mostly get trout but when I make the frozen fish (bought at the store) it’s usually haddock. I’ve never tried Hoki fish, and honestly I don’t think I’ve ever seen it around here!
Excuse me for running away screaming. But…. cooking!!!! Anyway, the last picture looks delicious!!!
Mitchell – Cooking is almost the perfect art form for me. I know what the rules are, I can experiment within those rules, and if something does not work well I can change it next time. I am really enjoying it lately. ;)
It’s just like cooking roasted potatoes, only the shape of the pieces is different. I make sure my potatoes get a good coating of oil by putting them in a large bowl, adding oil then stirring gently until all are coated. Remove with a slotted spoon and place in the roasting pan, which is always metal in my house.My favourite fish is deep sea Dory.
Thank you. I’ve done different variations of all these steps. Can’t wait to have another crack and I LOVE sweet potato chips.
I’ve never had much luck with sweet potato crisps, either fried or baked. They always come out either mushy or burnt to a crisp, I will have to try your method!
Yum yum yum. I might have to try this method as like the poster above, my sweet potato always comes out mushy and I have real thing for sweet potato chips at the moment!