Chip Shop Chips are a British institution & deep frying homemade chips just like your favourite chippy is very easy, just add salt & vinegar.
Creating perfect chippy chips is really very quick, all of the time is in preparation but cooking them takes just 10 minutes!
Perfect Homemade Chippy Chips
Spending 13 years living in the Hungarian countryside gave me plenty of time to yearn for, and find a way to replicate my favourite takeaway recipes at home.
Fakeaway dishes on my run deep and wide with everything from chicken chow mein to chicken balti and egg foo yung to buttermilk southern fried chicken burgers getting a look in.
But let’s face it… as a Brit the granddaddy of all takeaways is the local chippy!
So of course I have a recipe that aims at emulating those glorious “blonde” chip shop style chips.
They are remarkably easy to cook at home so long as you have a fryer. They cook in under 10 minutes and all of the work to make them chippy chips is in the preparation.
All you need to do is add loads of salt and vinegar and prepare yourself to feel really smug.
Especially if you treat yourself to a bit of food-safe newspaper print to get the memories (no matter if they are false memories) flowing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does the type of potato really matter?
Yes, it is the most important part of this recipe, if you do not get floury potatoes your chips will not turn out right.
I use King Edwards or Maris Pipers, if you are in the US look for something like a Russet!
Why do you soak the potatoes?
Chip shop chips are always fairly pale in colour and the way to achieve this is to wash off the surface starch.
Failure to do this will lead to much darker chips.
What fat should I use?
Many moons ago chip shops would have used hard fat, lard or more likely beef dripping.
Honestly, dripping makes a huge difference but it is not particularly practical. I usually use sunflower oil or vegetable oil.
Do I have to use a deep-fat fryer?
Oil temperature is critical in this recipe and as a result, the best way to achieve a consistent temperature is by using a deep-fat fryer.
You could use a chip pan or a large saucepan with a basket. But it is far more difficult to get a pan large enough to safely fry in and to manage the oil temperature.
Can I cook them in advance?
These chips can be frozen after the first cooking phase. Transfer them from the pan and soak up any excess oil on some kitchen paper.
Then place them in a single layer on a cooling rack and allow them to cool completely.
Place them in the freezer and freeze on the cooling rack before transferring to a bag.
You can cook them straight from frozen for 4-5 minutes at 190°C or 375°F. But you must be careful because they will spit and splutter because of the additional moisture.
Serving Suggestions
The only thing that chip shop chips “have” to be served with is salt and vinegar, failure to do so is an imprisonable offence!
After that, you can make your choice. My usual order would be Saveloy and chips with chippy curry sauce and mushy peas.
My wife would always go for battered sausage or jumbo sausage and mock my choice. This suits me fine because I could steal a bit of hers and she’d go nowhere near mine.
I will note that I have not mentioned fish… let’s face it the Brits are known for fish and chips.
Growing up fish and chips would have been an incredible indulgence and were generally well out of the budget for a rare chippy tea.
I do indulge now that I’m a grown-up though, and of course, I have a recipe for chip shop battered fish.
You can also use them to make salt and pepper chips.
Since returning to the UK I have discovered that folk up here in the “North” like their chips with gravy, which is just plain odd!
Equipment Used
I only mention brands of equipment if I think that they make a material difference to a recipe. But if you have any questions feel free to ask them in the comments section below the recipe.
- Deep fat fryer.
- Chopping board.
- Kitchen knife.
- Vegetable peeler.
- Large bowl to soak the potatoes.
- Tea towel and or kitchen paper to dry the potatoes.
Perfect Chippy Style Chip Shop Chips Recipe
Proper Chip Shop style chips are a thing of great beauty and possibly my most evocative food memory of growing up in the UK.
Ingredients
- 600g (4-5 medium sized) Floury Potatoes
- Malt Vinegar, to taste
- Salt, to taste
- Oil for deep frying
Instructions
- Peel the potatoes and then cut them into 1cm (½") thick chips. Don't worry about the roundness, keep aiming for 1cm size, the smaller chips go crispy which are my favourite.
- Soak the potatoes in cold water for 15 minutes, changing the water once during this time. Then remove the chips and dry them thoroughly.
- Preheat the oil in a deep fat fryer to 140°C or 285°F.
- Add your chips to the oil, and cook your chips until they are soft to the tip of the knife, which will take around 4-5 minutes.
- Remove the basket from the oil and turn the heat up to 190°C or 375°F and as soon as the oil has come to temperature drip the chips back into the fryer and cook for 2 minutes.
- Serve hot with loads of salt and vinegar!
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
2Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 459Total Fat: 21gSaturated Fat: 2gTrans Fat: 1gUnsaturated Fat: 18gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 30mgCarbohydrates: 63gFiber: 7gSugar: 4gProtein: 8g
Calorific details are provided by a third-party application and are to be used as indicative figures only.
Laurence
Friday 16th of June 2023
Hi Brian hope you're well and fine. Just wondering if I freeze the chips, when their soft to the tip cooked at 140c dried of oil, once they are frozen, do I have to defrost them to cook them or can they go straight into the deep fat fryer? I know they would splutter if they have too much water crystals on them, just would like your advice. Getting back to the vinegar, we always use a non brewed vinegar, which you can buy in fish/chips shops and pie/mash shops. We buy a 5litre brand called "VINNY" and we put chillies in a smaller bottle and add the vinegar to it. "Delish" I am not a lover of malt vinegar, I even take our vinegar over the pub when I have fish/chips, things we British do! So do I defrost or straight to the fryer. Thanking you Laurence.
Brian Jones
Friday 30th of June 2023
Hey Laurence, good to hear from you, sorry it's take a while to respond I gave this a test and it took me a while to squeeze it in.
I tried both straight from frozen and defrosted and found that going straight in the fryer from frozen gave marginally better results, as you say though you do need to be careful and it is a bit "fighty". Although I found that the defrosted chips were also quite moist even with drying with paper which leads to similar spluttering.
I'll see if I can hunt down some Vinny vinegar, I've not heard of it, although I do have a real weakness for malt vinegar.
All the best
Brian
Brent
Friday 26th of May 2023
The reason they stopped use newspaper is you put the tomato sauce on the newsprint rub your chips in the sauce when it got low and ended up with ink on your chips
Brian Jones
Sunday 28th of May 2023
Wrapping fish and chips solely in newspaper was a very short lived phenomenon during the war, by the 50's it had pretty much become just the outer layer of wrapping rather than the entire wrapping. The food safety act of 1990 pretty much put paid to that!
Also for the longest time, newspaper producers have refunded sellers of newspapers and reused the paper themselves rather than handing yesterdays news to the local chippie.
I'm nearly 50 and have no real memory of fish and chips wrapped in newspaper, although there was one really highly thought of chippie in Birmingham that had food safe "newspaper" wrapping produced to give it the vibe, bit it wasn't newspaper.
Malcolm
Saturday 5th of June 2021
What sort of beer would you use? I presume something reasonably fizzy but would it have to be a lager or might one of the fizzier ales be okay?
Brian Jones
Tuesday 8th of June 2021
Hi Malcolm... I change the beer that I use for this recipe all of the time, yes it needs to be fizzy but that does not necessarily mean a lager. I am currently hooked on cooking this with a Weissbeer :)
Chris
Friday 19th of March 2021
I think I know the chippy in Birmingham you mentioned, it was called Bedders on the Cov road. There used to be massive queues when ever it opened and they had the Newspaper style wrapping. It's was very tasty and I think I know why.... They used beef tallow for all the frying.
Brian Jones
Saturday 20th of March 2021
That be the place Chris, just down the road from Asda, I'm almost certain they would have used beef dripping to fry in, hard fats make such a difference to both flavour and texture when frying, lard is still exceptionally popular here in Hungary.
Charlotte
Wednesday 2nd of September 2020
Looks wonderful! I don't have a fat fryer and would be putting oil into a saucepan and heating on the hob, any tips on how to get close to the temperatures you're asking for? I am a Brit living in Germany and both me and my German husband are craving some proper fish and chips! Cheers!
Brian Jones
Wednesday 2nd of September 2020
It is the way my Mom would have done it! You will get to the temperatures but the difficulty is getting the temperatures right, a meat thermometer, or as daft as it sounds a sugar thermometer should work well.
The major risk though is overfilling the pan and having fat drip over the side on to the hob and starting a pan fire! If you heat too high, or over fill the pan or a combination of both then this is a real risk!
So yer it is possible but it is also risky, of you do take a punt then do not fill the pan over a third full of fat and try and do it with a thermometer. If the temperatures are off then they really will not cook right, they will either be raw in the middle or soggy and fatty.
Good luck :)