I used to think there was no better way of eating a burger than in some hip, reconditioned gastropub near the shore, with a frothy bitter and a pile of hand-cut chips falling all over everything. I was wrong. The best way to eat a burger is to buy one raw from your butcher, even if it’s just the one in Tesco, and then pick up some big sesame seeded baps and a sack of potatoes and do some self-assembly.
Seriously. It’s brilliant, and you can have just as much mayonnaise as you want (for me, this is none). All you need to do is fry up your burger for 10 minutes, toast your baps under the grill (steady), and shove it all together with some fancy baby salad leaves or something. It’s honestly better than any pub.
And hand-cut chips! Hand-cut chips! What a swizz. Every time I slice an onion to cook literally anything I’m going to start calling it a ‘hand-cut onion’. Anyone with hands can cut chips. Especially you. Just cut potatoes into the shape of chips, then toss them in a deepish frying pan with lots of vegetable oil (LOTS – they need to be swimming. Think of it as a crossroads between deep frying and shallow frying) and plenty of salt.
Put a lid on and leave them to soften over a medium heat, trying not to turn them too often, so they don’t disintegrate. This will take around half an hour. Towards the end, move them around a bit to make sure they get nice and golden, then tip them into a colander to shake off the rest of the oil. Then plate up. It’s delicious. Yes there’s a lot of oil, but I won’t tell NHS Scotland if you won’t.
Sean also makes quite an inspiring salsa to go with this, but frankly that’s just showing off.
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I always thought “hand-cut” chips were sliced with karate chops, or something similar. Like the hand was itself the cutting utensil. That would be a lot more impressive.
That would be impressive, but I think if I tried it I’d be more likely to end up with mashed potato than with chips. And a sore hand.