Most modern facilities use a machine called a continuous fryer that combines hot oil and a conveyor belt to mechanize the cooking process. Kettle frying is an old-fashioned method more similar to what you would do at home, i.e. heating a vessel of oil, dunking the sliced potatoes, and pulling when done.
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At some point in the past decade, it felt like kettle-cooked potato chips started to appear everywhere: on grocery store shelves, alongside the likes of classic Utz and ridged Ruffles; in workplaces young and hip enough to boast free office snacks designed to keep workers mindlessly sated; even on airplanes, one of a variety of treats in baskets proffered by attendants on better-than-average flights.
There’s a sheen of handmade wellness that accompanies kettle chips — or if not wellness, then at least wholesomeness. When the chips were revived in the 1980s, the New York Times reports, they were largely reintroduced to the market as artisan chips, from brands like Cape Cod, Tim’s Cascade, Zapp’s, and Kettle Brand. Kettle chips, unlike their continually processed brethren (what you might picture when thinking of the standard Lay’s chip), are fried in batches, dipped and swirled around in hot oil for longer periods of time until they’re crunchier and caramelized to a deeper color. It’s the same process that was used pre-1920s, before technological innovation enabled mass-market chip production, and the same cooking method you could use to make chips at home.
But the old-fashioned appeal of kettle chips belies one highly subjective truth: They are bad.
While some might find it a sensory pleasure to chew on handfuls of spud shards that jab at their gums, I confess I do not. Kettle chips are too hard, too edged, too committed to a brutality of texture to deliver a balanced gustatory experience. No matter the flavor of the chips, the taste nearly always smacks overwhelmingly of oil. Eating a small bagful feels like coating one’s mouth in grease, almost like a salve left over to make up for all the vigorous chomping that tooth and tongue and gums had to engage in to facilitate consumption. All that work, and for what?
Classic thin chips are just as greasy, as evidenced by the shine of one’s fingerprints after reaching into the chip bag one or five or 20 times, but here, the oil is offset by the lightness of the crisp, dissolving on the tongue like a cloud of potato-perfumed air. These are the gentler cousins of the kettle chip, their ethereality of form and flavor miraculously born of industrial manufacturing. When it comes to snacking, there are fewer choices finer than a wholly intact sour-cream-and-onion chip, better yet one whose circumference is roughly that of a hockey puck, its delicate crunch giving way to an allium tang as salty as it is sour.
Baked potato chips, too, are preferable to kettle chips. Not the plain baked Lay’s, which some might liken to “cardboard,” but specifically the baked cheddar-and-sour-cream Ruffles, that perfect freak of nature. There was a time when this variety of chip seemed ubiquitous — in school cafeterias, big-box stores, gas stations — before the mainstream ascendancy of kettle chips. And what an era that was.
(I will not address health or nutrition in my consideration of these chips, as I’m not a goddamn dietician.)
I am not so prejudiced against kettle chips that I will not eat a packet here or there, mostly in the Eater office (office? What’s that?) when there was little else to pick at. But, as someone who has eaten a lot of chips over the course of a lifetime, I feel confident in saying: Don’t settle for kettle, there are better options out there. Ones that boast their own kind of crunch; ones that are not so oppressively thick; ones that bring no pain, only pleasure, to the masses’ endlessly gaping maws.
Goldsuit is a painter and graphic designer based in Seattle.
Why are Kettle Chips so much better than regular chips?
FAQ
What is the difference between kettle chips and regular?
Are kettle fried chips healthier?
What does it mean to be kettle cooked?
Are kettle chips the same as fries?
Kettle chips are similar to fries in that they should be consumed in moderation. Whether commercial or homemade, the thing that sets kettle chips apart is the “batch” method in which they are cooked. The main idea is to fry thin potato slices slowly at low heat, presumably in a large, cast-iron kettle full of oil.
What is a kettle fried potato?
First, let’s look at the kettle kind. They’re batch‑fried in vats of oil, the temperature of which follows a U-curve that is key to creating their characteristic crunch. The process goes like this: The potato slices are dropped into moderately hot (about 300-degree) oil, which plunges to about 250 degrees.
How do you cook Kettle Chips in a frying pan?
Remove the kettle chips to towel to dry. Make sure to dry them well to avoid oil spatter. Frying in hot oil. Heat oil in kettle (Dutch oven)until it comes to temperature of 400 degrees F. Starting cooking the chips in small batches until they are fried golden brown. Then drain on paper towels and allow to cool.
What are kettle chips?
Kettle chips are potato chips that are cooked in batches at varying temperatures for a slightly longer time than regular potato chips. Regular potato chips are cooked at a steady temperature all together.