Chips/crisps, the challenge of home manufacture

If you choose to make chips/crisps at home, there are some pitfalls (similar pitfalls restaurants can face, but more on that later). If you make them at home in a FryDaddy, the heat it accomplishes is set and unchangeable, so you cannot really be suave in chip-making unless you vary the thickness of the chips to match the temp, which is too hot for thin chips. In this cooker, the best you'll get are very nice chips if you let them overbrown so as not to be soggy, and throw some herbs in the oil along with the potatoes. And SALT!!!

If you use a modulated-heat method, such as oil on the stovetop, you can fry on somewhat lower heat and achieve a golden brown, crispy crisp/chip.

Which brings me to restaurants: So many fry their fries/frites/chips (that last int he British sense) at too low a temperature, and end up with soggy brown fries with a bitter texture, rather than the delightful, fluffy and resilient frite of one's dreamlife: That golden brown crispy fry with a steamy potato inside, quite ready for the mayonnaise into which it really should be dipped. Hate mayonnaise? No fear, there's vinegar there for you to have an also finishing effect.

Vinegar makes the world go 'round, unless it's good mayonnaise.

The secret of the universe

As it turns out, it's cottage cheese pancakes. The 1959 edition of the 1896 Fannie Farmer Cooking School Cookbook explains all that weird stuff called "life" on page 290.

Don't be fooled by the foxy look of my book's cover, left; be convinced by the ingredient-encrusted page of my book, shown below.

Don't plan to make them if you can't serve them hot, immediately as they are made, i.e.if you have too many people or for some other reason can't be in production mode.

Nothing is better (You'll hear me say that about a few things, but not too many).

Put in a bowl:
I cup cottage cheese
3 beaten eggs
2 tbs butter
1/4 cup flour, sifted   <--  Not 3/4 cups as I mistakenly told a superfriend!
1/4 tsp salt

Beat only until blended.  Cook by tablespoons on a hot griddle. Spread with tart jam or drizzle with real Vermont maple syrup. Serve. Makes 12.

I made a little bit of that up. The actual printed recipe doesn't specify my home-state syrup (instead saying you can serve them with jam rolled up and sprinkled with confectioner's sugar) and tells you to serve them as dessert. I prefer a tangy, eggy, best-ever breakfast treat. The tang of the cottage cheese with the syrup is the secret of the universe.

Fancy & Interesting

Fourme d'Ambert cheese with melon terrine ~ Courtesy of Ideas in Food via Twitter. Sometimes it pays to fire up the ol' Tweetdeck.