Lesley Foottit looks at ideas for making the most of chips on your pub's menu ahead of National Chip Week (21 to 27 February).
Unusual marketing
Everybody has seen a chip before, so it makes sense to shout about its credentials on your menu.
The Bulls Head in Repton, Derbyshire, has hit the nail on the head with its menu description for a side order of chips. The pub boasts "real chips made from real potatoes by a real person in the Bulls Head, Repton" for £2.50.
Licensee and owner Richard Pope, who is the current BII (British Institute of Innkeeping) Licensee of the Year, came up with the idea. "I think it makes a big difference," says head chef Travis Toyne. "It sounds more inviting and we often have customers chuckling over the wording. We go for the wow factor."
The Bulls Head chefs peel and cut the potatoes themselves, getting through around 350kg a week from local vegetable supplier Fresh Pack.
Having installed a wood-fired pizza oven last summer, pizza is now a popular addition to the Bulls Head menu. "We get a lot of people ordering a side of chips with their pizza — almost every pizza is ordered with chips," says Toyne.
Pope has also created a memorable way of presenting fish and chips — the pub's best-selling dish. The chips are put into a boat fashioned out of newspaper, with greaseproof paper on the inside to protect the food from ink. The Freedom lager-battered Whitby cod is then placed on top, creating an innovative take on the style of takeaway fish and chips.
Experiment with sauces
Mitch Adams, of private leasehold the Thatchers Arms in Mount Bures, Essex, changed his ketchup supplier a year ago to rave reviews from regulars. Adams decided to look into locally-produced ketchup to suit his low-food miles ethos
and found Stokes Sauces. He now orders brown sauce, mint sauce, mustard and horseradish sauce as well as ketchup.
"We get loads of people saying it's the best ketchup they've ever tasted," says Adams.
It is around 20% more expensive than the pub's former brand, but Adams says it is worth it. The pub has maintained its food GP by slightly increasing prices on cheaper dishes and arranging deals with suppliers. Adams buys in catering tubs to use for big occasions, but otherwise likes to use new 300g bottles for each table.
The pub's chips are twice-fried in vegetable oil in a Lincat fryer and seasoned with Maldon salt. They are served in a bowl with the option of brown sauce and ketchup for £3. Around 100kg of Maris Piper potatoes are sourced from a local fruit and vegetable supplier each week and peeled and cut by hand.
Beef dripping and veggie chips
The Yew Tree Inn in Bunbury, Cheshire, has always cooked its chips in beef dripping — a popular method for pubs. The private leasehold advertises the chips on the menu as being cooked in beef dripping and offers chips cooked in vegetable oil for vegetarians.
"Chips cooked in beef dripping have a much nicer flavour, taste and texture," says head chef Steve Monk. "They are crispier too. We are known for our chips and people will come to the pub just to have a bowl. Veggies often ask for chips cooked in beef dripping, even though they are not suitable for vegetarians."
The Yew Tree Inn gets through up to 140kg of potatoes a week, sourced from Cheshire Farm 20 miles away. A side of chips comes in a bowl with sea salt for £2.95. The Dog and Bull in Whitchurch, Shropshire, also offers options of both beef dripping and vegetarian chips on the menu for £2.95.
Offer variety
Marco Caires, head chef at the Cricket Inn in Totley, Sheffield, South Yorkshire, advertises chips on the pub's menu alongside a variety of sauces. A bowl of hand-cut chips alone costs £2.25, but diners can add garlic mayonnaise, spicy ketchup or béarnaise sauce for £3.25. "It was an idea that we had," says Caires. "We are trying to keep everybody happy."
Garlic mayonnaise is the most popular sauce to be ordered with chips, followed by requests for spicy ketchup or béarnaise sauce.
The pub also offers a "pub tasting" board that features all the snacks and local Roses bread for £19. This comprises chipolatas with mustard, pork scratchings, black pudding
with sticky onion jam, devilled whitebait with tartare sauce, marinated olives, a Huntsman pie and, of course, a portion of hand-cut chips.
The Cricket Inn gets through around 300kg of potatoes each week and it can sell around 700 portions of chips in metal containers during a busy week.
"We will definitely do something special for National Chip Week this year," says Caires. "We are planning a few things, like making different shapes of chips, and adding more dips."
Make the perfect chip
Creating the perfect chip is a fine art. They should be crispy on the outside and soft on the inside — a product created using more science than you might think. Ed Beattie, head chef at Ribble Valley Inns' Three Fishes in Mitton, Lancashire, has got it all worked out.
First, he cuts up the pub's order of Maris Piper potatoes, which are specially graded so that they are all large — no "scraggly" chips here. Next, the chips are blanched or part-cooked at 120°C to 130°C in beef dripping for six to eight minutes. The chips are then cooled and cooked to order at a higher temperature of 180°C to 190°C.
"It is the heat of the fryer that crisps the outside of the chips," says Beattie. "If the chips are over-blanched they will turn really hard when cooked for the second time."
The kitchen has separate fryers for the sunflower oil vegetarian chips and a further fryer for cooking battered fish. Beattie adds: "If you use the same fryer for the fish and chips, bits of batter will float off and stick to your chips."
A side of chips at the pub costs £2.50 and the waiting staff are trained to upsell to customers as much as possible.
Around 730 portions of chips are sold a month using 100 25kg bags of potatoes. The chips are sourced from local supplier Sharrocks Fresh Produce in Preston.
Other potato varieties that are ideal for making chips are King Edward, Sante and Roosters.
Varieties good for making homemade potato wedges are Accord, Carlingford and Romano.
Presentation trends
A chip presentation technique slightly out of the norm means customers will remember it and pass on comments to friends. "New presentation trends are in vogue and have had some chefs stacking chunky chips on the plate, others serving French fries the Belgian
way, in a paper cone, and pubs and restaurants alike have started serving chips in individual terracotta flower pots," says Mohammed Essa, Aviko's general manager for the UK and Ireland.
"Consumers are also demanding new and exciting flavours when they eat out, with operators taking more and more inspiration from world cuisine."
Aviko spicy potato wedges offer customers a more interesting take on the humble pub chip — and can be priced slightly higher.
The company also offers Lord Chips — a chilled variant that can be ready for consumption in minutes — 30% faster than frozen chips.
Triple-cooked chips
Heston Blumenthal's Hinds Head pub in Bray, Berkshire, is well-known for its divine triple-cooked chips. The chefs cut potatoes into 15mm by 15mm cubes and simmer in lightly salted water until soft, before chilling until dry. Next, the chips are fried in a mixture of beef fat and vegetable oil at 130°C for eight minutes until they are white and then cooled once more. Before serving, the chips are fried in oil at 180°C until they are crisp and brown.
"The thing is that you are creating a light fluffy texture of the inside of the chip first and then forming the glass-like crust on the outside," ex-plains head chef Ashley Palmer-Watts. "When the potato is cooked in the water, the surface of the potato cracks and gains a rough texture, allowing the oil to penetrate and make them really crispy. Customers love the lightness of the chips and that they have a crispy fluffy texture. We also get a lot of positiv