Lunch Lady vs Birds Eye Deli Seasoned Chips Sea Salt + Rosemary

Lunch Lady vs Birds Eye Deli Seasoned Chips Sea Salt + Rosemary
10 November 2014

This was a fun one to take on, as I live in potato farm central. Nearly all of the potatoes grown around me make their way to factories to make these very products. It is CRAZY that I am unable to buy a bag of spuds grown on the surrounding farms at the local supermarket, instead I am offered spuds from over 600km away. If I do want the local spuds, I have to buy the processed chips, doesn’t make sense. Anyway. Let’s stick to the task at hand here.

Maya takes the job of choosing weekly Lunch Lady challenges, very seriously.

Potato chips. And how easy these suckers are to make.

As the weather is getting warmer in our neck of the woods, I find these potato treats are making their way in to the backyard with more regularity. They are so simple and take zero effort.

Now technically speaking, my version of potato chips would be called, the ever 90s favourite, wedges. I like to keep the skins on for extra crunch and chew. However, where mine differs from our 90s friend is, it doesn’t come with a bowl of sour cream and sweet chilli sauce.

Salt + Rosemary Seasoned Potato Chips (Deli Style)

Time it Takes

From Scratch Chips
Prep: 25 mins
Cooking: 25 mins

Birds Eye Deli Seasoned Chips
Cooking: 20 mins

I know I totally lose on the time front, but the prep is chucking a bunch of spuds in to a pot of boiling water for 20 mins and then chopping them up, nothing too strenuous, promise.

What You Need

From Scratch

• 1.5kg of potatoes
• A good handful of rosemary sprigs (don’t be shy)
• Salt to taste (we don’t have sea salt here, we have salt from Pink Lake, it is delicious)
• Olive Oil

Birds Eye Deli Seasoned Chips

• Potato (75%)
• Canola oil
• Corn starch
• Rice flour
• Potato starch
• Wheat flour
• Salt
• Thickeners (1404, xanthan gum, guar gum)
• Rosemary
• Acidity regulators (450, sodium bicarbonate)
• Garlic powder
• Sugar
• Pepper
• Contains wheat

What You Need to Do

From Scratch

1. Preheat your oven to 220˚C.
2. Grab your spuds and give them a good scrub (if they still have the dirt on them) and pop them in a pot of boiling water for about 20 – 25 mins. They are ready when you can poke a fork in them, but you don’t want them falling apart, as you still want to be able to chop them up in to chippies).
3. Once they are soft enough to poke your fork in to, take them off the hob and run them under some cold water and drain them.
4. If you are tough, or have worked in a kitchen most of your life you can grab your spuds while they are still hot and chop them up in to your desired chip shape. For those whose hands are a little more sensitive wait until you can handle your spuds to chop.
5. Grab a baking dish and generously coat it with olive oil, seriously, don’t be shy.
6. Place your chopped chips in to the dish, sprinkle with your desired amount of salt and rosemary (I am also not shy at this stage either). Then glug on some more of the olive oil so the chips are nicely coasted in all that delicious flavour.
7. Pop in your hot oven for approx 25 minutes, give the tray a shake and toss the chips a few times throughout the cooking process. All ovens are different. Mine is different from one day to the next, so just keep an eye on things.
8. Eat them. Tonight we ate them with sourdough flatbread wraps, carrot dip and salad. It was pretty freaking awesome, I have to say.

I will be sharing the sourdough flatbread recipe this week, oh and the dip too! My gawd, we are all a little obsessed with this carrot dip at the moment.

Birds Eye Deli Seasoned Chips

I actually forgot to take a photo of the directions for these chips. I found a really bad photo in google images and got this from it, I shall update this tomorrow:

1. Open bag
2. Place chips on baking tray
3. Put in hot oven for 20 mins
4. Eat

I know mine lose on two fronts here, time and prep. But that’s not what it’s all about is it? I know not everyone has the time to prepare food that I do, or even takes the same amount of joy in washing spuds as I do. But we do all like to give our kids and ourselves the best we can. And in the end, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it?

Oh, and there were a few of you guys on instagram asking about crispiness. Well we tested this out at the dinner table and we can happily report there were many crunching and crisping noises going on.

Now let’s all go and wash spuds! Woohoo!