What’s the perfect spud to make chips?

Since Mr T brought home an air-fryer, we went rather chips mad in our house. And according to Mr T, only the famous Kerr’s Pink are the perfect spud to be transformed into tasty chips.

Now, some people might not agree but we have tried many varieties and even I have to admit that the Kerr’s Pink are perfect for chips. Light crispy on the outside and wonderful fluffy on the outside – as chips should be.

The air fryer makes it a less calorie-laden affair and you can control the crispiness of the potatoes and they turn out nicely. If you look up UK celebrity chefs like Jamie Oliver, the Maris Piper variety is preferred but Australian chefs seem to favour Sebago potatoes - if you have never heard of them before, don’t worry, neither have I before I researched.

Sebago is a cross between two varieties (of which I have never heard of either), developed in USA and arrived in Australia in the 1940s. It is considered an all-round potato, great for baking, frying, mashing etc just as the Kerr’s Pink is.

Although we all believe that Kerr’s are an Irish original, a gentleman called J. Henry created the humble spud in Scotland around 1907. Interesting facts come to light if you dig a bit deeper (see what I did here?).

A man who should know, Dino Cregan of Dino’s in Blackpool, conformed that his chips are made of Kerr’s Pink and nothing else – he even went on RedFM to raise the flag for the spud. And since he is Dino Cregan, we should take his word for it!

Now the question is – skin on or skin off? When using Kerr’s Pink, we peel as the skin can be rather tough. Using Maris Piper, you can leave the skin on as it is lighter.

A lot of people love chips deep-fried as it gives the ‘real’ chips flavour. Baking fresh potato chips has never worked for me as they always dried out – if you buy special oven chips from the supermarket, they might turn out okay.

So the air-fryer was a good compromise – and chips always taste a lot better with some grated cheese on top. In case you don’t like going through the trouble of making your own chips, our chippers will have you covered, although a recent article on Cork Beo feared that we might be losing a lot of fish’n’chips shops due to rising costs in fish, spuds, oil etc.

Apparently, the price for cod has more than doubled which can add pressure to chippers keeping prices affordable.

But where would we go for the best chips in town? A few years ago, I was on a night out with a chef friend of mine and we ended up at Hillbilly’s on Grand Parade and I have to say, we had the best garlic and cheese chips I have eaten in a long time!