Geeky: Here’s How To Make Crystal Clear Chips

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

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By David Ponce

What you see there are potato chips. They’re see-through, but allegedly taste just like real chips. The future, as they say, is now!

Apparently “Hamid Salimian, Diva at the Met (a restaurant in Vancouver) chef, serves the ‘glass’ potato chip as part of an amuse bouche. He puts a dab of creme fraiche on a plate or stone, tops it with chopped chives and finishes with a heap of rasped truffles and the glass potato.”

Ok… maybe there’s a bit of cheating involved. There’s no actual deep fried potato slices there, but rather a potato-flavored stock mixed with potato starch, then turned into a gelatin which is dried flat for several hours before being fried. But the result allegedly tastes just like the real thing and has the added advantage of being, you know, freaking crystal clear!

So you want to make your own? Hit the jump for the full recipe.

Baked Potato Stock
8 Yukon gold potatoes
½ cup of olive oil
1 tablespoon kosher salt
1 liter of hot water (95 C, not boiling)

Wash the potatoes under cold water and dry with paper towel. Cut into the skin of each potato 1 cm. Toss the potatoes with ½ cup of olive and season with the salt.
Bake for 25 minutes at 450 F.
Remove from oven and place the baked potatoes in a bowl with 1 litre of hot water (95 C, slightly cooler than boiling temperature), cover it and let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours.
Strain the mixture with a fine strainer, reserving the baked potato stock. Chill stock in preparation for next step.

Baked Potato Gel
4 tablespoons potato starch
2 cups of baked potato stock

Put chilled baked potato stock into a pot and whisk in the potato starch. Continue whisking the starch and stock together and bring it to boil, forming a gel. Remove from heat.
Drying: Spread the potato gel on a sheet of parchment paper. The gel should be about 3 mm thick.
Dry in the oven at 135 F for 2 hours until fully dry.
Frying: Break the dried sheet into irregular pieces about the size of playing card. Fry these potato chips at 350 F until clear and crisp. Remove and place on paper towel, then season with kosher salt.