Crispy Potato Skins

A recipe for crispy potato skins isn’t one you’d traditionally expect to find in a blog in January when we’re all thinking about regaining our pre-Christmas figures, but it’s one that will firmly remind our family of this particular New Year holiday with my parents.

We don’t own very many gadgets, but as a woman who suffers from almost debilitating arthritis, my mother has several and this electric potato peeler was our daughter’s favourite.

Grandmother and daughter made the bowl of thin crisps simply by adding the metre long peelings into a saucepan of hot oil for a few seconds, draining them on kitchen paper and sprinkling them with rock salt. I’d love to try them oven baked too for a healthier version.

The crispy potato skins tasted as good as any packet of crisps without the additives and preservatives usually associated with them. Organic or blight free potatoes would be the best choice of spuds to cook to make sure there’s no residue pesticides on them, but whatever your choice, ensure the potatoes have been scrubbed before cooking. Maggie from the Food Born & Bred blog wrote a helpful post about cooking oils here if you’re wondering which one is the best to use.

If you prefer your crisps ready-made but chemically free, Aoife Cox from The Daily Spud wrote a very informative post about the Spuds.ie project and Kaethe Burt-O’Dea’s plan to dominate Ireland with her Sarpo Axona crisps which you can read about here.