Had them

The perfect chip. So many people think they have this cracked. I happen to be one of them. Although Heston's version, cooked three times is gilding the lily in my opinion (and the ones he did with an infused aroma of hay and injected with tomato ketchup - or did I dream that- were ridiculous) you can't make a good chip without cooking it twice.

More importantly still, you must have the right potatoes. In the Stripey Cat household we can make chips out of anything and often do but for proper chips, real chips that hold the attention completely through each crisply melting bite until the last scrap has been lovingly located and captured from the serving dish you need a variety of spud called British Queen. Oddly enough, this isn't a potato that is much grown in the UK anymore, but in Ireland where they know their chips it's a still a widely planted crop.

The oil is quite important too. We like a peanut oil for its high smoke point but olive oil is good handled carefully. Don't use it more than two or three times for health reasons. Fill your frying container not more than 1/3 full and have a fire blanket in the kitchen in case of emergency. I know you can use one of those automatic deep fat fryers, but why? Don't try to cook too many chips at one time.

Carefully chop your spuds into chunky pieces, leave for a while, say 15 minutes to an hour, in a bowl of icy water. Drain them, dry well on a clean tea towel.

Heat the oil to hot enough, and this is where I'm going to fail you all because I don't know the temperature. It's the temperature at which a cube of bread takes a minute to brown but what does that mean. I know, because I cut the cube (and eat the crouton!) but it's very imprecise. Nevertheless, with all the due care necessary when dealing with hot oil plunge your dried chips into the sizzling bath. It will foam up impressively. Let the chips sizzle away for around five minutes, they will not change colour much in this time, should not in fact, but will seal their outsides and stop taking in oil.

Lift the chips from the pan to a place of draining. Reheat the oil, just a tad hotter than it was before and return the chips to the pan. Another 4 minutes should see you with chips that are both golden and delicous!

Scoop them out and allow to drain for a moment, then salt liberally and serve.