A food expert has shared the perfect technique to get crispy home-cooked chips which are deliciously fluffy on the inside too.

Chips might not be a health food, but the humble chipped potato is an absolute staple of British cuisine. We’re talking proper chips too - thick cut, creamy, potato stuffed, brown-yellow slices of carbs, not pathetic little French fries. According to food website Serious Eats, there’s a way to cook the perfect chips in your oven at home with just one added ingredient: vinegar.

The home cooked chips hack involves using vinegar as part of the cooking process itself, not just as a condiment to soak them in to serve like a chippy would.

Inspired by celebrity chef Hesthon Blumenthal, the method involves simmering the potatoes in water and vinegar before cooking in the oven - apparently, this helps the potatoes keep their shape while making the insides soft and the outside crispy.

First, slice peeled potatoes to your desired thickness, then boil them in vinegar water. The vinegar acts as a ‘glue’ to hold the potato together, which will help them keep their shape. The next step - which you can skip if you’re short on time - is to freeze the chips, for at least three hours. Again, this helps them retain their shape and structure. 

Next, you need to ‘double fry’ the potatoes. First, gently fry them at a lower temperature - in a pan of relatively cool oil with a temperature between 121-165C. Then, wait for them to cool completely, and fry them a second time. This ‘double cooked’ method makes them perfectly crispy.

As Serious Eats explains: “Shatteringly crisp with a soft, fluffy interior, British chips are something of a marvel when done right.

“Simmering the potatoes in a vinegar solution bolsters the pectin in the potatoes and helps them retain their shape during and after cooking

“Double-frying the potatoes makes them ultra-crisp.

“An optional step of freezing the chips between each stage of cooking results in an ultra-fluffy interior.”