I own a chippy AMA

[itsfridayitschippyteanight]

Name changed but I’ve seen 2 threads about fish and chips tonight - I have a chippy (away hence not working) AMA

What variety of potatoes do you use?

I live in the USA, and the chips are always disappointing (not the fries, they can be good). I'm thinking that it must be down to the variety of the potatoes.

Do chip shop staff get a lot of burns from splashed oil?

A chip shop near us, Ollie’s, won. Loads of awards, used to do pea fritters. In a ball shape, but only if you sat in the restaurant but which has now very sadly closed down.

I once went to an Edinburgh chippy that did battered mushrooms. Fab.

Im really missing a proper pasty and chip supper which ive only ever had in Belfast.
These pasties are mainly potato with onion and bits of sausage meat mixed in with seasoning ,battered and deep fried. Delicious.
When i was a child they were made out of the leftover chips (and fish if you were lucky ).
Cant get them or anything like them in England. I even looked hopefully at the menues in chips shops in Scotland but sadly with no luck. Id hoped that since Scotland had plain bread in waxed wrappers this other 'poor peoples food' had crossed the irish sea too. 😕

Re crispy vs soggy, I don't think soggy is quite the right word, but my usual experience of chip shop chips is to have them all wrapped up in the paper for some time while bringing them home. So they get soft, and they bathe in the vinegar, which is special chip shop vinegar, I have always maintained this, one day (as a child) I asked our chippy and his eyes sparkled and he said yes you're right, it's different, bring in a bottle and I'll fill one up for you, which he did! And he refilled it when it ran out. A couple of years later he started selling small bottles of chip shop vinegar, so we used to buy those. Nobody ever believed me about this though.

Anyway, being slightly damp from the warm squished trip home is half of the appeal. It's got to be thick, soft chips. Crispy is not the point. I don't mind a little bit of crisp if eating straight away, that's nice. But they shouldn't be like chips you get in a pub, that's a totally different thing.

I used to live in Leamington and there was a shop that did the battered orange chips. They were just as good as they look.

I would love to know your homemade tartare sauce recipe. Love a good tartare.

@Letsnotargue @gemjar81 seems they're thankfully still around, I need to widen my search for them 😀

I’be noticed this. Funny that. I wonder why……

I may be able to answer the earlier question of why salt and vinegar taste/smell different from a chip shop, to how they do at home.

Salt (sodium chloride) and vinegar (ethanoic acid) react together to form sodium ethanoate, and this is the unique smell, when mixed with the smell of the unrracted vinegar.

This only reliably happens at high temperatures. Chip shops fry at around 160-185°C, and because the chips have more oil on/in them than oven chips, they keep their searingly high temperature for longer. Where as, in an oven, it is the air around the chips that is very hot, so they cool much more quickly.

Sodium ethanoate (old name is sodium acetate) is the same ingredient that is inside those reusable hand warmers, that you boil up and then bend the little metal activator. If one every pops, smell the white crystals, they smell just like a chippy!

Grrrr.

The unreacted vinegar.

No - it's the best bit!

@itsfridayitschippyteanight aww come back , you start a really good AMA then vamoose , come back

What are orange chips? Never heard of them. Hoping someone can explain as the OP has disappeared.
Thanks

I think they’re battered chips

It's how we eat them in the Black Country.

secretbirmingham.com/orange-chips-black-country/

I grew up in London and we used to have to pay 10p for onion vinegar instead of the free normal vinegar. I assumed the onion vinegar was from the pickled onion jar so wondered why they were charging for it when they would have had to buy the normal vinegar?? Do you offer onion vinegar?

Now I live in the North West and nowhere offers onion vinegar and I can't get a decent battered sausage even when I actually find somewhere that sells them!

Thanks and also to @Missrabbithasfainted

Every day is a school day.

I was in Brighton last weekend for a day trip and was drooling over the fish and chip eaters. I think it was about £12 per portion, but I noticed that there weren't many chips if you had them "open" - maybe about 15-20 at a push. I didn't order any as I wasn't really hungry at the time. Last time I had chips were a few months' back and was charged £2.40p for a medium size. It really small with about 20 - 30 chips. I was meant to share them, but really felt it was far too small for the price I had paid. I know COL have had a huge impact on chippies and other catering businesses, but it was a bit of a cheek to be sold this.

I love chippy chips - you can't replicate this at home at all.

Where I live it's about £7/8 for cod. I don't order it as it's too big for one person to eat. Thankfully, one place where I go to have cod bites for a few quid.

Is your business in a tourist area? If not, how seasonal is the trade? Do most people eat it right away outdoors or take it home?

I couldn't fancy fish and chips on a hot day. They are just the thing to warm me up when I'm out and it's rather cold and windy. It's a race against time to eat the food before it goes stone cold!