It’s the simple things that are the best and I love fries as much as the next person. No carb free living for me, and I don’t care if I have a muffin top, life’s too short to be eating just ‘clean food’. Food should be delicious, beautiful and sensual and a bit of what you fancy. I eat mostly healthy food which is unprocessed with lots of vegetables, fish and of course cake. I don’t have a microwave and am still mistaken for someone at least fifteen years younger so I must be doing something right.

We never had fries as kids at home, so they were the food of the gods when we had them at school. Mum served up things like sukiyaki, carrot rapeé or spaghetti, which I loved, but fries are in another league of comfort food. One of my favourite dinners is fries with a salad like winter slaw or Caesar salad or a fish recipes like Spanish clams look in the salad and fish sections. For me fries and salad are the perfect balance of flavours and textures, and salad and potatoes are packed with vitamin C and fish with fries needs no explaining. Last year my now ex boyfriend and I always shared a portion of fries in some of the most expensive restaurants in London to have as a side order with what ever else we ordered, usually octopus. We loved the same sort of food, a bit of this and a bit of that.

Recipe

Serves 2.

Ingredients:
2 very large potatoes (floury types work best, like Russet, Desiree, King Edward or Maris Piper)
2 tablespoons of olive oil or mild coconut oil
Salt and pepper to taste

How:
Preheat the oven to 200°C and get a large non stick oven proof pan or tray at the ready.
Peel the potatoes and cut into chip shapes. I cut mine into medium sized chips, the size of your little finger, but you might like them thicker or thinner. Place in a saucepan of salted boiling water and gently simmer for three to four minutes.
Drain the chips completely and tip onto the oven proof pan in a single layer. Coat the chips the two tablespoons of the olive oil or coconut oil (warmed a bit to make liquid) and very gently toss with a spatula till they are coated in oil and then roast for 15-20 minutes or until they are golden and crispy, oven temperatures vary, turning them with the spatula half way through.
Remove from the oven and tip onto kitchen paper to drain then they are ready to put on plates.

Lastly you can’t beat salt and vinegar on fries particularly when you are eating them with fish. I also love them with good old Heinz tomato ketchup, obviously. There is a fragrance and taste free coconut oil on the market now which you can it order online by Vitacost, so if you don’t want your cooking to taste coconutty then I really recommend this product, I got mine in Whole foods but I didn’t see it last time I was in there.

I shop at:
Waitrose
Sainsbury’s
Tesco
Lidl