From Donna’s Wine Pantry – Perfectly Paired Chips!

Image: 

I recently wrote an article about salty foods paired with wine for Onboard Magazine . Since fish & chips is a New Zealand favourite,

I thought I would offer my chips recipe and throw in a few tips about matching wine with salty foods. (Click here to go through to the library of wine & food matching articles written for Onboard Magazine here on my web site to learn more).

Before we get to the recipe, here are a couple of quick reminders for a successful wine match with your chips and salty foods in general:

Go for the whites – with higher acid and lower alcohol, whites make the perfect match with salty foods as the acids will lessen salts impact, bringing the food and wine into balance.

Remember high alcohol content in wine will be accentuated by salt – so it’s best to choose a wine with a lower alcohol content. An abundance of salt in food will make wine seem “hotter” or more alcoholic than it is.

Perfectly Paired Chips!

Peel about 4 medium size mature white potatoes.

Cut them into shoestring size – or size to your liking.

Rinse under cold water until the water is clear of any milky starch colour.

Pat dry and put into the freezer until you are ready to fry, but not longer than an hour.

You don’t need a deep fat fryer, in fact using peanut oil in a deep pan is a healthier alternative frying method.

Fill a deep skillet three quarters full with peanut oil and heat it to 180 – 190 c.

Add the frozen potatoes and cook for about 3 -5 min.

Drain, pat dry and be sure to shake to remove any surplus oil. The potatoes will be limp and only a lite yellow somewhat translucent colour. At this stage, cool in the fridge on paper towels until you are ready for the 2nd fry.

Using the same oil, now turn up the heat to about 190 – 225c. Fry a 2nd time to achieve true crispness and a golden rod colour.

Remove from pan, drain on paper towels and pat excess oil off. Sprinkle with your favourite coarse grain salt.

Enjoy these salty slivers of fried potato warm with your favourite chilled snappy white! Bon Appetit!