An easy step-by-step guide on how to make Heston Blumenthal’s Triple Cooked Chips recipe at home. We’ve made lots of mistakes trying to get them right, so we hope this definitive guide means you’ll have an easier time.
It’s taken us 4 years to get the hang of making Heston Blumenthal’s Triple Cooked Chips recipe. Along with certain savoury porridges and breakfast ice creams they’re one of the Fat Duck chef’s most famous dishes. And one you can make at home.
In the spirit of sharing we’d like to offer you this definitive step-by-step guide on how to make Heston’s Perfect Triple Cooked Chips recipe. Hopefully it’ll help you avoid all the problems that’ve spoiled our previous attempts. We hope this guide will help you to cook Heston’s Triple Cooked Chips perfectly the first time and every time.
We’ll try and avoid our usual waffle, so no references to obscure horror movies or Final Fantasy VII.
SUMMARY
Here’s a clip from the BBC series In Search of Perfection, showing you how to make the Triple Cooked Chips recipe :
There’s a better video from the Channel 4 series How to Cook Like Heston, but it’s blocked in the UK. We’ve found that to get the best results we need to adjust some of his instructions. As you’ll read below.
Recipes: Heston Blumenthal’s Triple Cooked Chips recipe
Special Equipment: Deep fryer or Chip pan with basket, high range digital thermometer, kitchen timer
Special Ingredients: Arran Victory / Maris Piper potatoes, groundnut oil
Time: 7 hours
Cost: £4.50
Serves: 4
Difficulty: Medium
INGREDIENTS
- 1 – 2 kg of Maris Piper potatoes
- 2 litres Groundnut oil for frying
- Salt & vinegar to season
METHOD
- Peel potatoes and cut into thick wedges
- Rinse potatoes under cold water until water is completely clear
- Bring a very large pan of water to the boil and add potatoes
- Immediately reduce heat to a simmer and cook until potatoes have a broken surface (15 – 30 min)
- Carefully remove cooked potatoes and gently lay on a cake rack in one layer
- Leave potatoes to go cold, then carefully place in fridge for at least 2 hours
- Heat frying oil to 130°C
- Fry chips in small batches (no more than around 20 at a time) for 4 minutes exactly
- Carefully lay the chips back onto the cake rack and leave them to go completely cold
- Carefully transfer chips to the fridge and cool for another 2 hours, minimum
- Heat oil to 190°C and an oven to 100°C
- Fry chips in small batches for 8 minutes, 1 – 2 minutes longer if required
- Drain on kitchen paper. Keep cooked chips warm in oven while cooking the other batches.
- Serve with salt and vinegar to your liking
REPORT
Step 1: Preparing the Potatoes
Buy Maris Piper Potatoes (or Arran Victory, if you can find them) – this recipe can be ruined by picking the wrong type of potato. Your spud’s dry matter content (the thing that makes a potato waxy or floury) is the key factor. In the In Search of Perfection series Heston showed how exhaustive tests proved the Maris Piper potato is the best potato to make Triple Cooked Chips with.
Peel your potatoes and cut into thick wedges (you can square off the peeled potatoes for better presentation if you like). The triple cooking process will give your chips quite a thick crust. You want to make sure they’re pretty thick or your finished chips will be all crust and no fluffy centre. (Word of warning, if they’re too thick then moisture will remain in the centre and the chips will become soggy).
The triple cooking process is designed to drive away moisture, creating a better crunch, this means your potatoes will shrink during the process. Your finished chips won’t be as big as they are now.
The cut potatoes need to be thoroughly rinsed of all surface starch. Run them under cold water for a couple of minutes, tossing them several times to get each surface of every individual chip completely clear. Cloudy water means there is still starch present.
Optional: A lot of the flavour of a potato is in the skin. You can wrap the skins in muslin (or a disposable hairnet like we do) then add them to the water. This will infuse some of the flavour of the skins into the chips while they cook.
Step 2: Simmering
Bring a very large pot of water to the boil. Do not overcrowd the pan as the chips will take longer to cook.
Once the chips are in the pan turn down the heat. A fast, rolling boil is quite aggressive and that boiling will churn the chips about. This churning motion will risk breaking the chips apart into small chunks. Not what you’re looking for. You want there to be barely any bubbles rising to the surface of your water.
Keep an eye on the pan from the ten minute mark onwards. You are looking for the chips to be nearly falling apart, says Heston. This means lots of jagged cracks on the surface of your potatoes that will soak up oil during the two frying stages, giving you more crunch.
Step 3: Draining and Drying
Be VERY careful when handling the chips. As Heston says, the chips should be almost falling apart. They will be very fragile. Do NOT tip them all into a colander in one go.
We recommend you use a slotted spoon to fish each individual chip our when you think it looks ready. Heston’s Triple Cooked Chips recipe tells you the potatoes will be ready after 20 minutes. In our experiments we’ve found chips are done after anywhere between 15 and 30 minutes. Sometimes longer. We’ve found potatoes from the same bag can take different times to cook, some chips being ready 10 minutes before the others
Gently place the chips in a single layer on a cake rack (or the rack from your grill, if you don’t have a cake rack). You’ll see lots of steam rising off them. This is good.
When the chips have cooled completely to room temperature put them in the fridge for at least two hours. Heston’s later recipes say you can speed this process up, putting the chips into the freezer for just one hour. We’ve tried using the freezer, but we think the fridge method works much better.
Step 4: First Fry
Heat a pan of oil or deep fat fryer to 130°C (the oil will cool down slightly when you add the cold chips, like adding ice to a drink, but don’t worry). It is best to use groundnut oil, as it’s neutrally flavoured. But if your budget doesn’t allow then sunflower oil is absolutely fine. That’s what we’re using. If you want to be really extravagant then follow Hawksmoor’s advice and fry your triple cooked chips in beef dripping.
If using a pan it might take a minute or two for you to achieve a stable temperature. You don’t need a super-accurate thermometer, but you do need to make sure yours will go as high as 200°C. Some digital thermometers designed for meat won’t go any higher than 99°C.
Set a timer for 4 minutes and start it once the chips are submerged in the hot oil. See all those bubbles coming off the oil? That’s water boiling away, giving you a dryer, crispier chip.
It’s best to work in small batches. We’re frying about 3 ½ potatoes or about 20 chips at a time here. Gently rustle the basket every minute or so to turn the chips and ensure they don’t stick and cook evenly.
You want the chips to be the same colour as when they went into the oil, or very pale blonde at the most.
Step 5: Drain and Dry Again
The frying process will have given the chips a slightly tougher crust, which will make them a bit easier to handle. The triple cooked chips will still be quite delicate so you should still be very careful when handling them.
Pat very gently with kitchen paper to remove the excess oil then place them back on the cake or grill rack in the same way you did before. They need another two hours in the fridge (or an hour in the freezer if you’re in a hurry, or just feeling brave).
After the second drying stage the chips should be noticeably smaller than when you started. Your drying rack will have a lot more empty space.
Step 6: Final Fry
As before heat your deep fat fryer or pan of oil, this time to 190°C then set your oven to a low heat. And set a timer for 8 minutes.
It’s still best to work in small batches; we’re cooking no more than about 20 chips in one go.
Submerge the chips in the hot oil and start the timer. If you think the chips look slightly undercooked then give them a little longer.
Drain on kitchen paper. If working in batches then transfer the chips to a tray in a low oven (around 80 – 100°C works well) to keep warm while you cook the other portions. If they make a thunking noise when they land on the tray you’ve done your job well.
Congratulations, you’ve successfully made Heston Blumenthal’s Perfect Triple Cooked Chips recipe. Add lots of salt and enjoy.
VERDICT
They take a lot of time and careful attention (and, for us, years of practice) but Heston Blumenthal Triple Cooked Chips really are worth it. You will literally never have eaten a chip this crispy.
It’s no wonder they’re now copied by everyone from Hawksmoor to Tom Kerridge. We wouldn’t make these every week (we’re so lazy we don’t even make them once a month) but for a special occasion they’re definitely worth it.
Rip one open and you can genuinely see the promised “glass like crust” and fluffy centre. Perfection.
Further Reading
Click here for all 16 of Heston Blumenthal’s In Search of Perfection recipes
We made these chips to accompany Heston’s Perfect Steak and Salad recipe from In Search of Perfection. If you’d like to read how we’ve got on with Heston’s other In Search of Perfection recipes (we’re about to start on his second book after finishing all the recipes in the first) then please have a look at the following:
Heston’s Perfect Spaghetti Bolognese recipe – our first attempt from a few years ago
Heston’s Perfect Spaghetti Bolognese recipe (Redux) – We made this a second time, because it’s so damn good
Heston’s Perfect Roast Chicken recipe – find out why we think this is the worst roast chicken recipe we’ve ever tried
Heston’s Perfect Pizza recipe – Heston’s In Search of Perfection Pizza recipe cooks in less than five minutes! (as long as you did the 2 days of preparation beforehand)
More triple cooked chips fun:
BigSpud’s Triple Cooked Chips – Our good friend Gary over at BigSpud has a written a detailed and helpful report on how to make Heston Blumenthal’s triple cooked chips recipe. HIGHLY recommended reading.
The Londoner – Check this out! Rosie got to see a personal master class in triple cooked chip making with Dinner’s Ashley Palmer-Watts. Stunning photography too.
Have you tried to make Heston’s Triple Cooked Chips recipe? And if so did you think it was worth the effort? Please let us know in the comments section.
Oh, I am so going to give these a go. But I’ll need to borrow a deep fryer!
One day, one day…
Kita they are completely worth trying at least once. We tried these in our old £10 economy-model fryer, but in all honesty a chip pan works just as well (as long as you don’t have a gas hob!).
We picked up a seperate basket at the supermarket that fits into our largest saucepan for about £1.50. The only drawback is it takes a couple of hours to cool, sieve and decant the oil back into the bottles.
P.S. If we were able to transfer the money to you would you consider sending some of the new Heston supermarket range over to a friend of ours in London?
Followed and tweeted!
Followed and tweeted! @spizmo91. Great competition – thank you!! I received one of Heston’s other books for Christmas last year and I LOVE it. read it cover to cover!! Would absolutely love to add this one to my collection :-0
Followed & tweeted @KatieJ_A_C https://twitter.com/KatieJ_A_C/status/397375490119311361
https://twitter.com/littlenic1976
FOLLOWED AND TWEETED
followed and tweeted @kirkbridestacey
Followed and tweeted.
Can i ask why you couldn’t use a chip pan if you have a gas hob? I so want to make those chips. I’ve never made real chips before.
Hi there Michelle!
Thanks for entering, hope the recipe gives you a few ideas and some inspiration.
For us the gas hob thing is purely a safety precaution. We’d LOVE the huge benefits of gas hobs, and we dearly miss not having them. But we’re not at all brave enough to pair them with big wobbly pans brimming with oil, so if we did have one we’d probably invest in a deep fat fryer, just to be on the safe side.
Entered, this looks like a worthy book to have.
Great post, it’s always nice to know the pitfalls to be wary of in any given recipe.
Thanks as always! 🙂
This is a recipe that’s given us grief for 4 solid years. This post is the result of innumerable failures and frustrations. I just hope no one else gets as much aggravation from making this recipe as we did!
I gave these a wurl recently…I dont think I was brave enough in the initial boil…mine held themselves together a little too much… http://burningkitchen.co.uk/heston-blumenthals-chips/
Hey man! Fantastic blog and a great read. Loving your sous-vide stuff. And your triple cooked chips actually look pretty good. Certainly a lot better than some of our botched attempts!
Along with getting the potatoes dry (via the fridge, not the freezer) and making sure you pick the right variety we’ve found the boiling / simmering is the absolute most crucial part of the process. They want the gentlest simmer and constant checking at the 15-minute mark.
The ChefSteps guys actually cook their triple cooked chips sous vide instead of boiling. 20 minutes at 90 degrees seems to produce the result they’re after. Maybe it’s worth a try? We’re considering doing this for our next batch.
Fantastic idea! Going to give the sous vide first stage a step 🙂 I need to try and find a few more hours for these beauties to get them bob on.
Looking forward to hearing about your fish pie adventures!
[…] at the Fat Duck – try them before dismissing them. Perfect fluffy chips with a crisp coating http://www.insearchofheston.com/2013…by-step-guide/ http://www.channel4.com/programmes/h…d-chips-recipe __________________ You get what you […]
[…] them first until they are almost falling apart, and then freezing them. When ready for the big event he fries them at 130 °C (266 °F) for five minutes, lets them cool and then dunks them into […]
I love these! Because of the hassle involved, when I make them I make a 2kg bag of potatoes, and freeze any excess between the two frys – then just fry them up on demand. Much better than a bag of frozen chips from the supermarket!
That is a very good idea! We may well start copying this. Just recently we’ve been very lazy and thus started doing skinless wedges via the beef dripping roast potato method. Not exactly chips, but excellent results for far less hassle.
> “When the chips have cooled completely to room temperature put them in the fridge for at least two hours.”
it’s not clear to me whether they can be stored in the fridge in an enclosed container, or whether they have to be open to the air. I don’t have room in my fridge for the drying rack.
Hi James,
The reason for storing them in the fridge is to allow the cool air of the refrigerator to help dry the chips out. It’s this loss of mositure that makes the chips keep shrinking throughout the cooking process. For that reason I’d guess uncovered and exposed top and bottom via a drying rack is “best practice”.
Back in the real world I reckon you could get decent enough results by putting the chips in the absolute biggest bit of Tupperware you can fit in the fridge. Put scrunched up kitchen roll on the bottom (to catch and absorb the condensation / moisture coming out of the chips). If you’re doing a lot try to put another flat sheet of kitchen roll between each layer. Finish with more roll on top. Aim to keep a lot of free space between the chips to help with air circulation.
Let us know if you try this and if it helps! Good luck with your triple-cooking 🙂
Hi,
Ok, thanks for the info 🙂
Due to circumstances, I had to leave the chips in the fridge overnight, so I put them in a Tupperware container with some paper towels.
I also had to do the recipe a bit differently — I had to use up some leftover Red Royale potatoes (this is in Australia… don’t know if that variety is found elsewhere) and could only put the chips in the freezer for an hour after the first deep fry. The results were pretty decent, but definitely didn’t have quite the right crunchy exterior.
James.
How come you specifically call for groundnut oil, but your image shows you using sunflower oil?
Guilty as charged. You caught us out!
Its Heston, not us, who truly recommends using groundnut oil – it has a more neutral flavour, so you’re less likely to taste oil and more likely to taste potato. But at £4 a litre in our local supermarket it’s not always the most cost-effective option. You can get good results from using sunflower oil (we did ok), but we thought we ought to pass on Heston’s genuine recommendation for oil, rather than the money-saving short cut we took. Well spotted!
It took me a while to figure out the “groundnut” thing. I’m a Yank..that’s peanut oil I think. Nice name though..Ground Nut. I’ve been making these chips or French Fries as they are called here for a few years. One thing I leaned was do the whole thing in the deep fryer basket. Cut the potatoes and wash as instructed above. Put them in the fryer basket and boil in a stock pot as above. Lift them out and drain, let cool and then put in Fridge. Take them out and do the first fry. Chill again and do the second fry. This reduces the chance of breaking the chips.
This is a terrible health risk, the ‘crispy’ brown coat of the chip is called acrylamide, which is linked cancer and considered a ‘serious public health risk’ by WHO.
Acrylamide is formed when sugars and amino acids that are naturally present in the potato are heated. It’s also present in bread, cookies, cereal, potato chips, bbq meat (should I continue?). When you eat fries make sure they are gold/yellow and not brown.
So it’s kind of like promoting Marlboro’s. acrylamide is one of the substances in cigarettes that cause cancer also. Just think people should be aware.
[…] for the other challengers was emotional, not scientific. I chose the best fries we had ever eaten: Heston’s perfect pommes frites, along with our nemesis recipe, Kenji Lopez Alt’s similarly named […]