Potato Chips

Crunchy potato chips with salt that are so much better than store bought

---

City/Region: England

Time Period: 1817

---

There’s a story going around that potato chips were invented near Saratoga Springs, New York in 1853 and it involves a chef, a snooty customer, and increasingly thin slices of potatoes. There are several holes in this story, a huge one being that there are recipes for chips from far earlier, like this one from 1817.

The recipe says to slice the potatoes 1/4 inch thick, so I experimented with that and with ones that were 1/8 inch thick. Both were really good and crunchy and tasted deliciously of potato and lard. The thinner chips were a bit crunchier and had more of that browned savory flavor. Either way, they were so good and definitely worth trying.

“Potatoes fried in Slices or Shavings
Peel large Potatoes, slice them about a quarter of an inch thick, or cut them in shavings round and round, as you would peel a lemon; dry them well in a clean cloth, and fry them in lard or dripping. Take care that your fat and frying-pan are quite clean; put it on a quick fire, watch it, and as soon as the lard boils, and is still, put in the slices of potatoe, and keep moving them till they are crisp; take them up, and lay them to drain on a sieve; send them up with very little salt sprinkled over them.”

— The Cook’s Oracle by Dr. William Kitchiner, 1817

---

Ingredients:

• A few russet potatoes or other high starch potato, about 1 lb (450 g)
• 2 quarts (2 L) lard or other oil
• Salt

Instructions:

1. Peel the potatoes and slice them into 1/4-inch rounds, or thinner if you prefer. A mandolin is handy for this if you have one because you want very even slices, and they would have had mandolins in 1853, so it’s even period-accurate! Dry the potato slices well.
2. In a pot, heat the fat to 365°F (185°C).
3. Carefully add the potato slices. The temperature of the oil will drop and you actually want it to get to between 240°F and 250°F (115°C and 120°C). This temperature range is where you want to keep it for most of the frying. How long they need to cook will depend on how thick the slices are. My 1/8-inch slices took about 5 to 7 minutes, the 1/4-inch slices took about 15 minutes. Move the chips around occasionally so that they don’t stick and will fry more evenly. When a lot of the bubbles stop bubbling and they start to brown, raise the temperature close to 300°F (150°C), but don’t go over 300°F. Cook the chips at this temperature for about 5 minutes to get them to really crisp up and darken.
4. When the chips feel firm when you stir them and are a nice brown, take them out and set them either in a large flat sieve or on some paper towel laid over a cooling rack to drain.
5. Let them cool for about a minute, then sprinkle them with some salt and toss them.
6. Cool to room temperature, and serve them forth.

---