Fingerling or Sweet Potato Chips

This fairly simple recipe for homemade potato chips is a tasty alternative to the ever-tempting store-bought bag. With hardly any prep or cook time, this snack can be whipped up for impromptu gatherings any day of the week. And for a special Halloween twist, try sprinkling our Black Hawaiian Sea Salt on top.

Chock-full of recipes for both the beginner and intermediate chef, acclaimed chef Thomas Keller intends for every dish in Ad Hoc At Home to bring family & friends together at the table, year-round.

Fingerling or Sweet Potato Chips
serves 6

Fingerling potatoes sliced lengthwise make visually unusual, appealing chips. For bigger chips, we like to fry sweet potatoes, which are very crunchy and flavorful. These go perfectly with a grilled cheese sandwich or hamburgers, but they'd also be an elegant side for a quail dish.

1 pound large fingerling potatoes, scrubbed, or 1 large sweet potato, peeled
Peanut or canola oil for deep-frying
Kosher salt

Set up a Japanese mandoline or other vegetable slicer to make very thin slices. Cut off the end of the potato(es) on a slight diagonal, which will give you a better angle for slicing the potato, and cut a few slices on the mandoline. The slices should be as thin as possible but not so thin that the edges becom uneven; adjust the blade as necessary, and continue slicing the potatoes.

Pour 3 inches of oil into a Dutch oven or deep pot and heat over medium-high heat to 350°F for fingerlings, 325°F for sweet potatoes.

Preheat the oven to 200°F. Set a cooling rack on a baking sheet and line the rack with paper towels.

Add about one-quarter of the potatoes to the hot oil and cook, turning once with a wire skimmer, until golden brown, about 2 1/2 minutes. Turning the potatoes helps prevent air pockets from developing in the chips, which would keep the centers from crisping. Transfer to the paper towels to drain and immediately season with salt.

Ad Hoc At Home, by Thomas Keller. Photography by Deborah Jones. Artisan, a division of Workman Publishing Company, Inc., $50.00