Glass Potato Chips

Let's be honest: Potato chips are boring. Every time I wander the chip aisle of the grocery store, there is some supposedly new twist on the potato chip. Classic. Jalapeno. Terra Blue. Vinegar and salt. Vidalia onion. Ranch. Whatever. Most are a disappointment.

Why couldn't the potato chip be beautiful? A work of art? An architectural design element?

Behold: The Edible Glass Potato Chip

This chip is stunning. It's see-through like no other food. It has the distinct crunch and flavor of a potato chip, but in an unexpected space-age form.

This is molecular gastronomy brought home. It involves potato stock, potato starch, and a slow-dried gel. The first couple of steps are a breeze, but I warn you in advance: you must have patience to bring these to fruition. The last few steps require that you dehydrate the gel and then deep fry the chips in oil (like the real ones). But the result is oh-so-worth-it (every calorie, too).

The original recipe was created Hamid Salimian, the chef at Diva at the Met. I improved the recipe by using a squeeze bottle to create more uniform potato chips. I also experimented with adding herbs like rosemary to the recipe which is a great way to bring your own twist to the recipe.

Enjoy!

Step 1: Ingredients

Ingredients:   

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees F

8 Yukon Gold Potatoes

High quality finishing salt or Kosher Salt

1/2 Cup

Olive Oil

4 Cups Water

4 Tbsp Potato Starch 

Optional- Fresh herbs/ Rosemary

Squeeze Bottle

Step 2: Wash the Potatoes

Wash the potatoes in cold water and dry them with a paper towel. 

Step 3: Season & Bake

Place the cleaned potatoes on a cutting board and make a slit into each one about 1cm thick. Next, place the potatoes in a bowl and add the olive oil & salt. Toss to combine. 

Place the potatoes on a baking sheet and into the pre-heated oven for 25 minutes. 

Pour four cups of water into a pot and bring it to the temperature right under a boil. 

Step 4: Make the Baked Potato Stock

Place the baked potatoes into a clean bowl and pour the hot liquid over it. Cover the top of the bowl and let it sit at room temperature for two hours. 

Remove the potatoes and save for another dish. Strain the liquid using a fine mesh strainer. Place the stock into an airtight container and chill, preferably overnight. 

Step 5: Make the Potato Gel

To make the Potato Gel, pour the chilled stock into a pot over medium high heat and add 4 tbsp of the potato starch. Whisk the mixture immediately. The starch will stick to the bottom a bit. Continue whisking the starch and stock until the mixture turns into a gel. 

Step 6: Form Shapes and Dry in Oven

Pre-heat oven to 135 degrees F. Place a piece of parchment paper on a baking sheet. Pour the gel into a squeeze bottle. Form oval elongated shapes resembling potato chips onto the parchment. They should be semi thick. If they are too thin, they will break when you fry them. 

Place in the oven for 8-10 hours or overnight. You need the gel to be completely dry for this to work.

If you are in a rush, you can raise the oven heat to 225  degrees F and it may shorten the drying time. Just be sure they don't get to dried out, they may shrivel up. Drying time may be cut in half at this temperature, but not sure. 

Step 7: Make the Glass Potato Chips

To make the Glass Potato Chips, pour vegetable oil into a wok or deep saute pan. I wouldn't recommend using a fryer unless it has a really low temperature setting because the chips will most likely burn. I did a couple of test runs and when the oil was to hot they lost their "glass" texture and they resembled a fried pork rind. 

Make sure the heat is on low/medium low. I recommend starting with the heat on medium low and then lowering the heat to low.  Use a pair of tongs and dip one or two chips at a time into the oil. The chips are really delicate, but will stand up to being handled with the tongs. Just be gentle. Turn them a couple of times. You will notice immediately the glass texture once they hit the oil. Be attentive and watch the chips. Once they turn a light golden amber they are ready. 

Place them on a paper towel and sprinkle with salt. 

Step 8: Edible Glass Potato Chips!

Here ya' go! Completely edible glass potato chips! Although time consuming, these are really freakin cool and they taste amazing!

Please post pics if decide to make these. 

Enjoy!

Comments

[CityGirl6]

Wow, I love these!

[lmnopeas]

Thanks!

[Satrek]

I made this! I actually did it without step 7, i.e. without frying them. They came out of the oven crunchy and tasty already, so we decided to destroy the batch - orally - without frying.

The potatos, though, seasoned and baked, would do a fine side-dish all by themselves. We made this: http://www.instructables.com/id/Cheesy-Potato-Heaven/?ALLSTEPS with the remaining potatos.

[lmnopeas]

I'm glad you tried the recipe! Were the chips transparent?

[Satrek]

Transparent enough, with a slightly yellowish tint, but they were definitly something new and surprising.

[DqwertyC]

These look amazing! I'll probably make these for April Fools Day. Any idea if you could get a 'stained glass' look if you added food dye while mixing in the starch?

[lmnopeas]

Yes! You can achieve this effect by adding a few drops of food coloring or food gel. Have fun!

[lmnopeas]

Your biggest expense would be the potato starch. It shouldn't cost you more than $10-15 dollars if you have some of the other ingredients on hand.

[softenersreviews]

how much would the parts cost in total?

[mandriloquai]

I have never seen this twist on potato chips... very "molecular cuisine". Thanks for the idea and hope I can try it soon

[lmnopeas]

Thanks!

[ClosetChipsin]

Can't wait to try these!

[DividersMaker]

Looks great :) I'll post the pic of mine when I'm done :)

[rock321]

i did the rosemary and that turned out really well. i did do some chili powder, but i had already put them in the oven so i put a few of the chips in a separate bowl and just tossed them but most of it fell off. doesn't mean i can't add more when i eat them. truffle salt tasted reaalllyy good on them. salt & vinegar didn't. i got the "pork rind" kind of thing. they didn't look good, but the vinegar tasted great. not sure how that works for calories though, mixing vinegar and hot oil lol. i still have some gel left and im going to try some barbecue seasoning and some cayenne. Over all, I'm incredibly impressed with the results. maybe they arent the best tasting "potato" chips out there, but the novelty of them is totally worth the effort. i did it in two days because i only spent about an hour cooling the gel so i could get them in the oven overnight. came out great.

[lmnopeas]

If you don't dry out the gel long enough, you will end up with a pork rind texture. Set the oven to a really low temp and really let the gel dry out. Glad you tried some different flavor combos! I'll have to try it them with Truffle salt. That's a great idea!

[rock321]

I've actually got the stock cooling from some russets right now. im getting ready to make the gel and then im going to bake it over night. anything i should try flavor-wise? im going to use some rosemary on some, but i figure i can do alot of different things.

[lmnopeas]

Tint the gel different colors. Use gel paste food color. Also, try a little heat. Maybe add some cayenne or chili powder you have on hand.
Try a pinch of artisan salt, if you have any. I'd love to test the chips with different flavor and color combos.

Good luck! Let me know how they turn out. :)

[WUVIE]

Wow, how cool are these? I see you are a Lock and Lock fan, too!

Loved your Instructable!

[Les Créateliers]

That looks wonderful! I posted it on my website, you can see the page here: http://www.lescreateliers.com/Les_Createliers/Idees_Ideas/Entries/2012/11/22_Croustilles_de_verreGlass_potato_chips.html
Thanks!
Marie-Eve

[dlim13]

hello, i want to try to make this awesome potatoes chips. but i want to ask you first.
Can i use corn starch instead of potato starch?

thanks before.

[ilpug]

Snack food of the future :D

[desmondtheredx]

that is awesome

[Mauigerbil]

This is so cool! Excellent instructable and stuff. Can you use that cool salt they make for popcorn?

[jkoznek]

so if you are just using the potatos for flavoring, why not just use something else for flavoring and create something totally different? Like use vegetable broth or some other flavoring?

[nickdisney]

could you substitute potato starch for corn starch?

[lmnopeas]

I think so. I bet it would yield the same results as the potato starch.

[cclarke6]

Please be careful when you store the potatoes in an airtight container. Clostridium Botulinum does not need air to grow, and leaving the potatoes in an air tight container overnight may risk bacteria growth. Just thought i'd warn everyone to practice care with their food, please! Great idea and excellent execution.

[nickdisney]

c. botulinum needs an anaerobic(zero oxygen) medium to grow. and some spores. any ideas where the spores come from? soil. thats right, soil. c. botulinum, or botulism is Gram positive, and produces toxins within 58 minutes at 99 degrees Fahrenheit. BUT, with the proper heating (10 minutes with anything over 158 degrees Fahrenheit) kills the bacteria to levels which are benign. unless you are storing soil in your rubbermaid containers and fail to wash it, pour in your home canned ingredients and leave it in your boiler room for a few hours, you won't need to worry. not to say you shouldn't be careful, but the number of people who die each year from botulism is minute compared to other causes of food poisoning.

[thepredestrian]

"Place in the oven for 8-10 hours or overnight. You need the gel to be completely dry for this to work"

So the oven has to be switched on for the whole night? Are you sure? Wont they get burnt, if not a total waste of electricity?

[lmnopeas]

The first time I tried to dry the gel, I followed the original recipe and waited two hours and nothing. It hadn't dried one bit. I waited another two hours. The gel was still wet. ( at this point I was so impatient I tried to fry a chip) it didn't work, it was a mess.

For this recipe to work, the gel must be completely dry. The method I used was to put the oven on the lowest possible temp. and dry the gel over night. I had total success this way and they didn't burn.

Everybody has a different oven. Mine took 8 hours to dry, but yours may only take a couple hours. I suggest keeping an eye on it. See what works best for you. You can try raising the temp on the oven to a higher degree to speed up the process, but be careful. The gel is delicate and it may dry out to much and shrivel.

Good luck!

[aseidl1]

Could I use a food dehydrator rather than the oven? Obviously, it's going to be a much longer project, but can anyone think of a reason this won't work?

[lmnopeas]

I should work. If you do use a dehydrator, let me know how long the process takes to dry out the gel.

Thanks!

[sambotogo]

Your clever as usual peas! Very cool item with many uses! Keep the creative juices flowing!!! 5 stars as always!

[minifoodie]

Looks like such a fun party snack! I could use some pointers for jazzing - at what point would you add the herbs / spices? And the food coloring?

[lmnopeas]

After you complete step five, you can tint the gel any color you want using food coloring or food gel. At this point, you should add any herbs you want and then dry the gel out in the oven.

After the gel is dry, fry the chips and then add any additional spices or seasonings. Speciality salts would work well, like high quality flake salts or chili salt for a little extra kick.

[scaffnet]

Couldn't you just use store-bought potato starch and save yourself the first steps?

[lmnopeas]

Potato starch has almost no flavor. It's used as a thickening agent. The stock is what gives the chips the potato flavor.

[bamboo42]

These are going to meet Chalt
http://www.instructables.com/id/Chalt-The-condiment-for-2012-and-beyond/

I think these are awesome and I am already thinking of ways I can use them. Thanks ever so much for this one.

[lmnopeas]

Most definitely! It would be the ultimate spicy chip!

[mochimaster]

Maybe regular chips are boring [looking], but the ones with flavoring (like: "Jalapeno, Terra Blue, vinegar and salt, vidalia onion, ranch.") actually taste good; in other words, who necessarily pays attention to how they look?

These glass potato chips, I will admit, ARE very fashionable and creative, but maybe adding something to the ingredients to give a less bland of a taste would also help. I'm not sure salt, oil, and starch have a memorable taste.

But whatever the case, I don't care, and neither do you, because giving it a bold flavor wasn't the point of your project. You wanted to make chips more intriguing, and you did just that. And I salute you for pioneering into the exotic food world and coming up with something new like that. Very clever.

Post Scriptum: Looks like a great idea as a party snack.