The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Do it Yourself Discussion! => Topic started by: kdms on January 18, 2013, 10:41:32 AM
-
I was so pleased to discover last night that I could make my own potato chips using my xmas gift (food processor with multiple blades) that I'm really glad my DH's phone battery was too low to use the video camera function, because I probably looked pretty silly dancing around the kitchen with glee. (Potato chips were the first item to go off our grocery shopping list when we revamped our shopping lists to only include stuff we needed as opposed to wanted, but out of everything we've cut, chips are one of the items we miss the most.)
We tried deep-frying in both coconut and olive oil, and while the coconut oil got them crispy-ish (olive oil was a fail) the flavour wasn't all that great. We really don't like using canola oil for anything, so that's out. I was thinking of trying peanut oil the next time.
Anybody else do this? What's worked for you?
-
I don't like using canola oil for a variety of reasons (probably similar to yours) but my husband swears by it for any kind of frying (which we do very rarely). He actually bought a bottle the other week. I have to say it does the job much better than other oils we've tried.
My colleague makes chips in the microwave, but you can only do a few at a time. They taste amazing. I tried it, but it didn't work for me.
I've read that you shouldn't deep fry things in olive oil, I've never really researched it. I hate deep frying as it wastes so much oil. We do it rarely and I never know what to do with the left over oil. I know you're not supposed to put it down the drain, but ...
-
Sorry, I use canola. It works amazingly well, just so you know.
Maybe try sunflower oil?
-
After a little bit of googling, it looks like the secret to successful fries/chips is to use a oil with a high smoke point, which explains why the canola works well, and the peanut oil and the sunflower oil should do well as well. Safflower has one of the higher smoke points, but it's rather expensive.
It'll be an interesting experiment. Do you add flavours to your chips when they're done?
c: I understand your dilemna; I never know what to do with the leftovers either, so I usually end up reusing the oil (depending on what was done in it) for a couple of uses, and then letting it cool down and harden before scraping it into the garbage or putting it down the toilet.... /shrug
-
I use peanut oil, works well for me, I think it's the best common oil for deep frying anything. I also use Canola oil for bread and other cooking, not aware of any reason to avoid it.
-
I used to use a canola oil spray (PAM) when I was making bread - to coat the inside of the bowl during rising so that it'd be easier to dump out for shaping - and without fail, the loaves would go moldy within a week of baking. I stopped using the canola oil spray, and just use plain flour now, and the bread is fine for up to three weeks. Almost without fail, anything we use corn oil with either tastes a little bit like fish or goes rancid very quickly....
My problem with canola oil is that the corn it's made from is almost guaranteed to be GMO, which is a problem in my household....we try to keep to heritage/non-GMO modified foodstuffs. :)
-
Canola oil is also pretty high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fats, too, so it's not really great for your health. Same with most seed oils (including sunflower and safflower). Coconut oil and olive oil are better health-wise because they're mostly saturated and monounsaturated fats. But if they're unsuited to the job, they're unsuited - it's definitely a dilemma.
One thing you might try is paper-thin chips spritzed with olive oil, salted and baked. I've had some success with that. :)
-
My problem with canola oil is that the corn it's made from is almost guaranteed to be GMO, which is a problem in my household....we try to keep to heritage/non-GMO modified foodstuffs. :)
Canola oil is made from Rapeseed, not corn, which is also Genetically modified (which I'm fine with).
-
I think about 90% of the canola grown has been modified for herbicide resistance. I think I've seen organic/non-GMO canola, but like James I don't much worry about it. I have bought it unrefined and local (possibly organic?), and MAN the flavour was intense. Wonderful stuff. (there's not really any such thing as "heritage" canola, fyi; rapeseed was only bred to be edible a few decades ago)
I'd only worry about the fat palette of canola oil if it were the primary source of fats in your diet. (It really should not be; no one thing should. Whatever you pick, it's going to be unhealthy in exclusivity.)
-
Do they stay crisp like store chips or do you have to eat them in one sitting?
Ive baked potatoe slices with a little oil but they get soggy by the next day.
-
They stay crisp if you keep them in airtight containers. To be honest they never really last that long. I should start doing this again.
-
My problem with canola oil is that the corn it's made from is almost guaranteed to be GMO, which is a problem in my household....we try to keep to heritage/non-GMO modified foodstuffs. :)
Canola oil is made from Rapeseed, not corn, which is also Genetically modified (which I'm fine with).
My bad....I should have checked the bottle I keep to make my son's bubble blowing mixture first. ;)
-
I made chips using a couple of cups of lard that rendered out of my very large batch of (pork) chappli kebab a few weeks back, and they were amazing (as are french fries cooked in animal fat, of course). Maybe you could save your fat for a few weeks and give it a try?
-
I slice really thinly, toss to coat with olive oil and bake them instead of deep frying. Then you don't have to worry about smoke point. Much less expensive to do this way too! When I deep fry anything (only thing I do is tempura, actually) I use safflower or sunflower.
-
As an aside,
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use olive oil for frying. It has a lower smoke point than many other oils. What that means is the oil turns rancid once it hits a certain temperature. At that point, you lose all the nutritional benefits of the oil and it becomes unhealthy (not because it lost it's nutritional benefits, but because rancid oil is bad for your health).
-
I used to use a canola oil spray (PAM) when I was making bread - to coat the inside of the bowl during rising so that it'd be easier to dump out for shaping - and without fail, the loaves would go moldy within a week of baking. I stopped using the canola oil spray, and just use plain flour now, and the bread is fine for up to three weeks.
That's an interesting point. My bread (from bread machine) doesn't usually last much longer than a week, and I think this is true even on breads where I don't use canola oil. I will have to double check that, though. Is that a short lifetime in general? I typically let it breathe and cool down for a few hours, then store it in a gallon ziploc.
-
+1 to baking the chips. When we make them, we just sprinkle a little salt and bake for...however long it takes to get crispy. Might be interesting to pan fry just out of curiosity next time...
-
I never know what to do with the leftovers either, so I usually end up reusing the oil (depending on what was done in it) for a couple of uses, and then letting it cool down and harden before scraping it into the garbage or putting it down the toilet.... /shrug
Pouring grease down your drain (and the toilet counts) is bad because you'll eventually clog up your drain pipe (or the city sewer).
What you should do with your used grease is give it to a recycler. Recycling it into biodiesel is popular enough now that you can probably find someone willing to come pick it up for free, if you live in a reasonably-populated area.
-
NEVER, NEVER, NEVER use olive oil for frying. It has a lower smoke point than many other oils. What that means is the oil turns rancid once it hits a certain temperature. At that point, you lose all the nutritional benefits of the oil and it becomes unhealthy (not because it lost it's nutritional benefits, but because rancid oil is bad for your health).
Olive oil is okay for low and medium temp frying - it's above about 180 degrees (Celsius) that it starts to lose its nutritional benefits and produce unwanted by-products.
-
Canola oil is also pretty high in omega-6 polyunsaturated fats, too, so it's not really great for your health. Same with most seed oils (including sunflower and safflower). Coconut oil and olive oil are better health-wise because they're mostly saturated and monounsaturated fats. But if they're unsuited to the job, they're unsuited - it's definitely a dilemma.
One thing you might try is paper-thin chips spritzed with olive oil, salted and baked. I've had some success with that. :)
Canola also has a high amount of Omega 3's, the ratio is 2:1 which is actually on the good side of the scale. Peanut oil is a hell of a lot worse if you just take omega 6 numbers.
-
I have had great success with duck fat and lard. Apparently tallow is the best (for taste)..... If you think saturated fat is bad for you, I recommend researching why it is actually extremely good for you..... Canola should be illegal, so should all other vegetable fats (except for coconut oil) - for frying - as people have mentioned - they have a low smoke point and go rancid quickly.... If you want resources to read on why saturated fat is great, let me know and I will point you in the right direction.
-
I used to use a canola oil spray (PAM) when I was making bread - to coat the inside of the bowl during rising so that it'd be easier to dump out for shaping - and without fail, the loaves would go moldy within a week of baking. I stopped using the canola oil spray, and just use plain flour now, and the bread is fine for up to three weeks. Almost without fail, anything we use corn oil with either tastes a little bit like fish or goes rancid very quickly....
My problem with canola oil is that the corn it's made from is almost guaranteed to be GMO, which is a problem in my household....we try to keep to heritage/non-GMO modified foodstuffs. :)
Keep in mind that PAM and other spray oil products have more than just oil in it, so I don't think I would blame the canola - the test would be to use regular bottled canola vs. other oils to coat your bowl.
Also, canola has almost the same nutritional profile as olive oil but without the taste and at a fraction of the cost - so if you use olive oil for cooking then swithing to canola would be very mustachian and you can always drizzle some olive oil over the finished product to get the flavor.
-
I got one of these (http://www.amazon.com/Mastrad-A64601-Chips-Maker-Slicer/dp/B005AV0RVQ/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1370306631&sr=8-2&keywords=microwave+potato+chip+maker) for my wife for Christmas. It works great in the microwave with zero oil. The included mandolin is cheap, but it's working okay for us so far. There's also a set of two trays, but I don't recommend it because stacking the trays results in very uneven cooking.
-
I recently made chips in bacon fat because I had some from frying bacon, and they were great! A little bitter, but I think that was just the potatoes. I used my cheese grater to slice the potatoes.
I don't do much deep frying, but for general use I'm a fan of safflower oil. I can find it for around $3 for a regular sized container (quart?) at home, but around here I haven't seen it for less than $8. I also like peanut oil, but I'm allergic to peanuts and I had a mild reaction to some store brand peanut oil I bought once. I've never had a problem at restaurants that use it though.
I also had a bottle of rice bran oil, which was outstanding for frying (it made the most amazing eggs and french toast), but that was nearly $10 for a bottle from whole foods.
For cooking spray I like Pam for Grilling because it doesn't have soy lecethin or whatever is in the regular stuff that leaves brown residue on my baking pans. One day I read the labels on all the varieties in the store, including store brands (there are a lot!), and that was the only one that seemed suitable. It's not perfect, but I have had better results with that than regular cooking spray.
I haven't tried coconut oil yet, but I haven't been able to find it for an affordable price. Everywhere I've seen it's $6-8 for a jar. Anyone know where to get some cheap?
-
ghee.
High smoke point.
High in Omega 3.
Makes em' nice and crispy.
-
ghee.
High smoke point.
High in Omega 3.
Makes em' nice and crispy.
Interesting. Do you make or buy your ghee?
-
If you want to try coconut oil for this use expeller pressed coconut oil and not extra virgin which is what you will see in the supermarkets more often. Expeller pressed is more processed and has the coconut taste and smell removed, it is a neutral and flavorless oil and thus can be used in any recipe whether salty or sweet.
Its pretty much a good substitute for a bland tasting oil over canola and soy. The extra virgin coconut is alright when frying but leaves a but of the coconut taste which isn't always what you want.
http://www.tropicaltraditions.com/expeller-pressed_coconut_oil.htm
I usually buy it by the gallon because it lasts a really long time, its basically shelf stable for years. I end up giving away which is good because I'd rather seem then using a naturally occuring fat over soy and canola which are chemically extracted oils.
-
ghee.
High smoke point.
High in Omega 3.
Makes em' nice and crispy.
Interesting. Do you make or buy your ghee?
You could do either. If I were to do that I'd probably make the ghee myself, fresher and I could use whatever butter I wanted. I've seen some clarified butter in the store and the shelf and it just doesn't look good sometimes.
-
I use canola for deep frying, but only because it's one of the lowest (still really high) in Omega-6 of the "high smoke point oils"
Everything else fried is in butter, clarified butter, or pure olive oil (not extra virgin - that's for salads)
Canola oil is still terrrible for you though, and should be avoided at all costs. I just haven't found anything that gives its neutral flavour and the high heat fast cooking needed for deepfrying.
-
putting it down the toilet....
It'll clog your pipes and allows vermin to crawl/swim up, into the house. After cooling off, just pour it back into the now empty bottle, or put it in an empty milk carton, then throw away.
-
ghee.
High smoke point.
High in Omega 3.
Makes em' nice and crispy.
Interesting. Do you make or buy your ghee?
You could do either. If I were to do that I'd probably make the ghee myself, fresher and I could use whatever butter I wanted. I've seen some clarified butter in the store and the shelf and it just doesn't look good sometimes.
I think its cheaper to buy in bulk from the indian shop.