Why do my chips taste sweet, not savoury?

[GameofPhones]

Tesco white potatoes, first microwaved for speed, then fried in a mixture of olive oil (just a little) and sunflower oil. Horribly sweet tasting, but why?

Not enough seasoning?

Have you been on a low carb diet? I find now that regular potatoes taste sweet to me now

The potatoes themselves perhaps? Some waxier ones taste a touch sweet to me.

Where do you store them ?
If in the fridge , the potato can taste sweet as storage in the fridge can do that .

Parboil instead of microwave might make a difference.

If you store potatoes in the cold for long, or in the fridge, they get sweeter.

Where are your storing them?

If they've been in the cold they often taste sweeter when cooked. So if you store them.in the fridge or the outside and its cold that may well be why.

Make sure the potatoes you are using are recommended for chips . Some potatoes can be sweet- depends in the variety.

Olive oil has a strong flavour and tastes a bit odd on potatoes to me, you want to use ordinary vegetable oil like rapeseed that's fairly flavourless.

Microwave cooking always makes my potatoes taste sweet ime

I'd say it's the variety of potatoes. A lot of the ones sold as 'all rounders' are quite sweet.

I have a vague memory of one of my science teachers at school dinnertime making us all hold a teaspoonful of mash in our mouths for as long as we could. The longer you left it the sweeter it tasted, and they explained it was the carbohydrate being converted to sugar. Maybe some potatoes do that more readily than others.

Thanks all for these points. Yes, they've been in the fridge for a while.

If you store potatoes in the fridge then the starches turn to sugar, hence the sweet taste. You can leave them out for a few days and they will get more starchy again.

Get some Maris Piper, I got mine from Tescos and they have been lovely for chips to have with left over Christmas meats.
There is no need to be par cooking chips at all if your oil is hot enough! And you only need veg, sunflower or rapeseed oil, as those get to a higher temp and have no flavour at all.

I wonder if that’s because cooking them ‘properly’, ie parboiling, means that some of the starch it’s absorbed into the cooking water? But in the microwave there’s either a lot less or no water involved. I can’t imagine that a microwaved potato that’s then deep fried is ever going to taste like a proper chip…!

Did you soak them in cold water first to remove the excess starch? That makes a huge difference.

You need to soak them after peeling and cutting them into chips. If you've got any potatoes left, try peeling one and chopping it into 4 pieces then put it on cold water. Does the water go cloudy?
I ALWAYS soak my peeled potatoes in cold water before cooking them for chips, roasties and gratin & dauphinois recipes.

Did you accidentally put sugar on instead of salt? We ate a very strange lasagne last month after someone did this.

They taste sweeter if they've been in the fridge

It's the starches converting to sugars because they're kept in the fridge.

Whites are just not a good spud for frying or roasting, too wet, too little starch

For chips/roasties you need Marie Piper, king Edwards, roosters

However if you can get hold of Agria, snap them up. Seriously the best chipping roasting spud about - and believe me, Ive cooked tonnes of chips

Great advice here, thankyou.