Chips, or if you prefer, French Fries Part 2

After my questionable result with Heston Blumenthal's triple cooked chips, my school chum, Jen, gave me her recipe for 'All Day Chips' named by her son Isaac because it does take all day .... but in quick bursts.

Andrew and I were in town most of Saturday as he was running a yoga workshop and this would leave me little time to cook when I got home. So I decided I would get the new deep fat fryer in action again and prepare the chips in the morning before we left. Stage 1 was to cut the chips into even pieces and then parboil for a few minutes before draining and drying off. I put them into a tea towel and then the fridge for an hour or so before frying them off at 150 degrees C until they started to colour and placed them back in the fridge in a bowl lined with kitchen paper with a tea towel over the top. I had decided to serve up Pork Saltimbocca from Gino D'Acampo's book Buonissimo! on Page 155. His recipe calls for turkey steaks but as you are now aware we don't really rate turkey very much so substituted pork tenderloin instead. This recipe is so simple. I cut the tenderloin into three, lay it between cling film and bashed it flat with my rolling pin before laying parma ham on top with a couple of sage leaves fixed with cocktail sticks, covered with cling film and left in the fridge until our return.

After a great afternoon we returned home and pulling the rest of the dinner was easy. I heated up the deep fat fryer to 190 degrees C and fried off the pork on the parma ham side for 2 minutes and reverse for 3 minutes until just about cooked through and removed it from the pan. Marsala was poured into the pork pan scraping up the pork bits from around the sides and reducing before adding some butter to the pan and the pork steaks. Chips were refried for about 5 minutes and all on the table within 40 minutes of returning home.

I looked anxiously at Mike as he picked up the first chip and ate it .... silence .... "Well?" I asked, unable to deal with the suspense anymore. "They're great ... much better than the others" Hurrah .... well done Jen ... what does Heston know anyway? Jen's All day Chips are now going to be a regular feature in our house ... as is the Saltimbocca, simple and delicious. 

Eat well and enjoy your culinary journey ... wherever it may lead. After all these years, mine has returned to the humble chip.