French Fry Diary 662: Nathan’s Kettle Cooked Crinkle Cut Potato Chips

Now I’ve reviewed them before and I’m quite fond of Nathan’s Potato Chips, the thick crinkle cut style. On a recent stop at the fryless Nathan’s at the Thomas Edison rest stop on the NJ Turnpike, I saw these chips – kettle cooked crinkle cuts. I figured I’d give them a try.

First things first. The bag was so hard to open (I eventually gave up and just used a scissors) I thought perhaps I was mistaken and had actually bought it at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s.

These are almost identical to the other chips in every way except for the kettle cooking. The chips are too crunchy and too greasy. It’s almost as they were trying to ruin them. But I can’t really say that. I don’t like these, perhaps someone does.

French Fry Diary 641: Trader Joe’s South African Style Potato Chips

A recent trip to Trader Joe’s I discovered something new in the snack section, a mysterious black bag of potato chips I had never seen before. Officially titled Trader Joe’s Potato Chips with South African Style Seasoning, the package promised ‘classic potato chips with an exotic smoked flavor.’ Well, I’m down with that, into the cart and home they went.

A glance at the ingredients and the back of the bag hype revealed they weren’t all that far off from standard barbecue chips. They had paprika, chili powder, garlic, sea salt for a little extra something different, and then things got interesting as they also had seasonings like basil and parsley. This seasoning mix is usually used in fish or poultry when grilled, called in Afikaans, the braai, as barbecues are a social custom in South Africa, much like it is here. How exotic it actually is, I guess we’ll find out in the tasting.

Upon opening the bag a not unpleasant aroma rushed out, not unlike barbecue flavor potato chips with maybe some (surprise) basil and parsley thrown in. The actual taste is quite different. I expected a barbecue chip but that doesn’t quite come across. It’s a big thin crisp chip but the flavor is overpowered by the basil, parsley, and paprika, with just a slight after burn. These are excellent dipping chips for cold dips like ice cream.

These are good chips with a big unique taste, and certainly more palatable than many of the Do Us A Flavor contestants the last two years. Interesting, tasty, and even a bit addictive, these South African potato chips are definitely worth trying.

French Fry Diary 590: Eatrageous

Promoted as ‘the new spin on chips,’ Eatrageous potato snacks are indeed something different. They’re not fried, they’re not baked, as a matter of fact, they’re not even technically potatoes. Made from potato flour, yellow pea flour, rice, sunflower oil, and sea salt… Eatrageous is at best a potato-ish snack.

Created through ‘clean cooking technology’ (a ‘thermal flash process’) and shaped as tubes, they certainly are different. They are all natural, vegan, kosher, with no cholesterol, no saturated fats, no transfats, no GMO, gluten free, and less than 100 calories per serving – so one would think they’re relatively healthy for a snack.

The space age silver bag opened easily, which was something quite unexpected. The percentage of healthier snacks that are easy to open (especially those from Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s) is extremely low. Now these snacks are much smaller than one might think from the image on the bag, and the aroma from the Original Sea Salt flavor at least was similar to that you get from a bag of Bugles.

The ‘chip’ itself is a solid piece with points at the end supposedly to optimize dipping, but personally I think they’re just a bit too small for that. Maybe if they were 25% bigger it might be a different story. They have a shiny shellac like surface that gives a hearty snap of a crunch, but quite honestly, very little flavor.

This is of course could be alleviated by the aforementioned dipping into something flavorful, or you could try one of the other available (and unique) Eatrageous styles like Wasabi Ranch, Crunchy Mac ‘N Cheese, or the one I should have looked for and gotten, Sweet & Smokey BBQ. I’ll withhold a full opinion until I try that last one, but until then, Eatrageous are definitely worth trying. Make your own decision on this ‘new spin.’

French Fry Diary 588: Kettle Brand Real Sliced Potatoes

Last time I reviewed a Kettle Brand product (the Sweet & Salty Potato Chips which absolutely rocked) I got into trouble on the Twitter with someone arguing the actual healthiness of the potato chips and/or the oil they were cooked in.

Let me be clear. This is a foodie blog about French fries, potato chips, onion rings, and junk or fast food. We’re having fun and not being all that serious. It’s not rocket science. If a potato chip has no transfats, no preservatives, no GMO, is gluten free, and made from natural ingredients – that’s about as healthy as potato chips get. To be healthier, you would need to NOT eat the chip. Got it? A health food blog this is not, and if you’re looking for nutritional advice here, you have much bigger problems.

That said, I was excited by a new Kettle Brand chip I saw at Whole Foods called Real Sliced Potatoes so I decided to try them. For the record, they are gluten free and all that stuff I said above. Add to that low sodium and no cholesterol. And they are not all that new. These are Kettle Brand’s baked chips with a cool new rebranding. It does however beg the question of if these are real, are the others fake sliced potatoes, but we’ll just let that slide. The rebranding worked, and caught my attention.

Real Sliced Potatoes come in different flavors like Sea Salt, Sea Salt & Vinegar, Hickory Honey Barbeque, the intriguing Cheddar & Roasted Tomato, and the new Olive Oil. Guess which one I tried? If you know me at all you know it was the BBQ flavor.

These chips are awesome, crispy, sweet and spicy, and have a good thickness, great for dipping. They are very similar to Trader Joe’s Baked Hickory Barbeque Potato Chips, which I also love, but these are better, sweeter, just awesome – I think I’ve found a new favorite potato chip. Recommended.

French Fry Diary 586: Archer Farms Potato Chips

Just to be clear, Archer Farms is really neither a potato chip maker nor distributor as we usually think of them. Archer Farms is Target, and you’ll only be able to get these chips at Target – it’s their store brand. The last time I was in Target, looking for Kettle Brand Sweet & Salty chips, because the website said mistakenly they were there, I ended up walking out with these.

I was attracted to the lattice cut first and then had to double down when I saw they had Sweet & Spicy Barbecue flavor lattice cut. Sold. I’ve been waiting for Herr’s or Cape Cod to do barbecue for a while, but it seems Target did it first. It just seems like a natural next step to me, but then I love the barbecue flavor and the lattice cut.

As excited as I was to try them, I mucked up opening the bag. I ended up just cutting it open with a scissors. Of course had I taken a moment, I would have figured out how to properly pull the tab on the front to open the ziplock reclosable bag. It’s easy once you know about it, but if you don’t examine the bag closely before attempting to open, well, they might as well have come from Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s.

The potato chips are thick and twisty as a kettle chip should be, and that along with the lattice cut make them just perfect for dipping. The barbecue flavor has all the traditional ingredients but with a bit more kick than usual. The molasses in there gives it just a tinge of sweetness. I dig these a lot, thumbs up.

French Fry Diary 567: North Fork Potato Chips

These chips came once again from Marni’s significant other, Bob. From Martin Sidor Farms in Long Island Farms, come these kettle cooked potato chips. The bag brags that they’re made from Long Island potatoes. Now I’m far from an expert, but I have never heard Long Island being a big potato chip, or even potato, place. There is also a big deal made of them being cooked with NuSun sunflower oil. Live and learn, I suppose.

Speaking of the bag, it was near impossible to open. I eventually resorted to a pair of scissors. This made chip bags at Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s seem like child’s play. Once I had it open, I was not thrilled with what I saw.

Not only wasn’t the aroma all that great, but the chips looked overdone and slightly burnt for the most part. They were kinda thin for kettle cooked chips, and didn’t taste very good either. I was reminded of the stale chips at the bottom of a week old bag of Wise regular. Not very good at all.

Thank you, Bob, keep ’em coming, but these were duds. I’m starting to distrust foil bags that aren’t Herr’s, and I’m really going to be wary of Long Island potatoes now.

French Fry Diary 491: T.G.I. Fridays Onion Rings Snacks

I am always leery of onion flavored snacks. They are usually pretty bad and unflavorful. The good ones, like the ones from 7-Eleven, are few and far beyond.

These T.G.I. Fridays Onion Rings Snacks are pretty average, and had a few things going against them from the start. I found them at Dollar Tree. No offense to Dollar Tree, but let’s face it, food from dollar stores is, by reputation, shady and suspect. Yes, I checked the expiration date. They were very hard to open, as if they were from Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s – maybe that’s why they were at Dollar Tree, faulty packaging.

The snacks themselves thick half-dollar sized crunchy facsimiles of onion rings. If you squint your eyes you can imagine they’re little donuts. They don’t taste like them though. They are pretty good with just a hint of onion flavoring. Compared to most onion snacks, these actually do have onion in them.

And surprisingly, as a Fridays product, these actually aren’t too bad for you. The serving size to calories ratio is pretty good, and there’s no sugar, cholesterol, or transfats. I liked these, not bad for a dollar store find.

French Fry Diary 463: Ole Salty’s Regular Salt

Next up from the Bag o’ Chips, that The Bride got me for Christmas this year, a selection of rare potato chips from Anchor’s Food Finds, we have the scariest bag of the bunch – Ole Salty’s Regular Salt.

This is a silver bag of chips with just a label, almost as if it was astronaut food. Not even an expiration date. Folks, it does not even say ‘potato chips’ on the bag. The ingredients however assure me whatever it is, it’s made of potatoes, soybean oil, and salt.

Ole Salty’s of Rockford Illinois is a mail order only company, and this scary plain silver bag had no expiration date. Ole Salty also sells popcorn, dips, among other things, and also chips of lesser and more salt added. The packaging appears the same for that stuff. I guess it’s a thing. Foil does keep sunlight out, which is not so good for chips in long exposures.

Only one thing to do. Open the bag. Not the easiest job in the world. So difficult, they could sell these things at Trader Joe’s. Once open, this extra large snack-size bag yielded, as noted, a 1.25 ounce serving of chips, filling roughly the bottom third of the bag.

These chips are rather small but very crunchy, perhaps kettle cooked. Their taste is a bit of a cross between Munchos and Lays regular chips, a little greasy. Perhaps the Extra Salt might be better, because these are a little bland. For something called Ole Salty’s, these chips needed salt.

French Fry Diary 419: Boulder Canyon Potato Chips

On a recent road trip I saw some potato chips I had never heard of before so I picked up some snack bags. One of them was Boulder Canyon Totally Natural Kettle Cooked Potato Chips. Yes, they are very healthy, because as we have learned in the past, the longer the name of the potato chip, the healthier they are.

Joking aside, if you’ve been to the Boulder Canyon website, you know what a terrifically health and environment conscious company they are. Some of their packaging is even combustible. The bag talks of their corporate support of Green Energy and American Rivers. They are very green. Also, regarding the bag, it was crazy hard to open, another sign of healthy chips, as we know from Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s products.

The chips follow suit by being gluten free, cholesterol free, trans fat free, all natural, the ingredients including only potatoes, oil, and salt. That’s probably also because the Totally Natural style are the regular chip, no extra seasonings or flavorings. That’s a problem. While they were nicely thick, lots of crunch, good kettle shape for dipping, and not greasy at all – they were also not salted well at all. Seriously needs salt, despite what the ingredients say.

Good chip for dipping as it would take on flavor that way. I would definitely be interested in trying some of the other styles, especially the Hickory Barbeque, but these were just okay.

French Fry Diary 319: Trader Joe’s Shredded Hash Browns Two Ways

The last time I reviewed Trader Joe’s Shredded Hash Browns I theorized that they could also be damned good matchstick fries (pretty much self-explanatory, or if you insist, very very thin shoestrings), if deep fried or baked. Well, on my most recent trip to TJ’s, I picked some up, and had the opportunity to give it a try.

For deep frying, it’s got to be quick, and you’ve got to keep your eyes on them. They are so thin, they cook fast. Get the oil hot, drop the taters, and as soon as they all float, get ’em outta there – they’re done. Now I was surprised at how they shrank but don’t worry.

They’re not fries in the traditional sense or even how I imagined they would be, but they are damned good potato sticks, just like French’s or Herr’s, only without the salt (albeit with more oil). They are tasty, very crispy, and worth giving this cooking method a try.

I also tried to bake Trader Joe’s Shredded Hash Browns. The first attempt was on a greased pan in the oven for ten minutes at 425 degrees – all completely arbitrary guess work. All it did was thaw them. No browning, but they smelled good. I gave them another ten minutes, watching them carefully, because I wasn’t really looking to make another batch of potato sticks.

Twenty minutes seemed just enough time. These were mini-fries, what are called in the industry matchstick fries, and more in the line of what I was expecting. Whereas the deep fried version was strictly a finger food, these could be eaten with a fork.

All in all this was a good experiment in cooking potatoes two ways they weren’t strictly meant to be. If you try it at home, I hope you enjoy!