Ulysses; Guinness Battered Chips

And Richie Goulding drank his Power and Leopold Bloom his cider drank. Lidwell his Guinness, second gentleman said they would partake of two more tankards if she did not mind. Miss Kennedy smirked, disserving, coral lips, at first, at second. She did not mind.

-Ulysses, James Joyce

Side step to the left of Easter planning to take on a bit of Irish. Just in time for St Patrick’s Day, what better way to celebrate than by tipping our little green hat to Irish James Joyce and his novel Ulysses, set in Dublin.

This is more a ‘inspired by’ rather than a replica from the Ulysses book, as Guiness is mentioned just under a dozen times. Thank goodness for being able to search in Google Books. I’ve taken Ulysses out from the library to tackle and ohmergerd. When half the book is notes to understand the book itself? You’re in trouble. I’ll let you know how it goes when I finish it… in a year… or two. If ever. I might just go back to my Roald Dahl books.

I made an absolute mess of my first batch of Guinness battered chips. I tried grilling them. You know how you just grab a frozen batch out of the freezer and pop them in the oven for 20 minutes?

Yeah, well… making them from scratch doesn’t work that way.

My second batch was a bit meh, but my third worked perfectly. Which is good, cuz I was getting absolutely sick of slicing taters by this point. But when you get something stuck in your head that you want to do, it’s pretty hard to give it up! The trick in making wedges/ chips/ fries from scratch is in cooking the potatoes first, then freezing them. If they loose their frozen shape, pop them back in the freezer for 5-10 minutes. Otherwise you end up with mush that batter doesn’t stick to.

And then you fry ’em, baby. Fry ’em good.

This recipe is a smoosh from, like, 5-6 different ones, and a few splashes of what was in my fridge.

First you’ll need (for 2 servings)

4-6 potatoes depending on size (I used Nadine as they hold their shape well), washed, dried, sliced into thin strips. Unless you like yours thick. I consider my perfect chips/wedges/fries as the type you get a thin potato with lots of crunchy batter.

Place into a steamer and cook until fork soft, but not falling apart.

Lay them all out on a tray, with baking paper under and over and place them in the freezer for a few hours.

When you’re ready to fry you’ll need,

enough vegetable/canola oil for deep frying

Put this into a saucepan and heat on stove. You’ll know it’s ready when you toss a small potato as practice in and it pops, sizzles and bubbles. Stand back though, oil gets angry!

While the oil is heating mix together

1 cup maize flour (makes for that great crunchiness)

1 tbsp of bbq sauce (gf version if needed)

1/2 cup of Guinness (but have extra on hand in case it’s too dry. Add bit by bit)

tsp of salt

sprinkling of pepper

sprinkle of chili powder (if you have it. I just like a kick)

When you’re ready to go, dip the potatoes in the mixture, and drop them into the pot of oil. Only put in enough potatoes where there will be enough space around them so they dont bump into each other. When they do, the oil can’t get to the mix and won’t make it all crunchy.They just moosh together. I cooked 4-5 at a time. When they’re done, usually 1-2 minutes. They’ll be golden and crispy and should float to the surface. Maybe. Some of mine just stuck to the bottom. Grab them with tongs and lay out on a paper towel to soak up the oil, before serving.

I didn’t do this as I ate them from the paper towel, but you could probably put the oven on low, and put the wedges on a tray in it to keep warm until they’re all done. Just a thought.

Serve with ketchup, or my fav, sweet chilli. Or maybe mix a Guinness cheese dipping sauce. And then let me know when you make the whole kitncaboodle. I’ll come over and help you eat it.