Operating five sites across the North East of England, Bells Fish & Chips handles over 14 tonnes of potatoes a week. We speak to owner Graham Kennedy to unearth what goes into producing the perfect chips
Where do you buy your potatoes from and why?
We use a local potato merchant called Gordon Cracknell. He’s very well-known in our area and he buys from recognised sources which is important to me because Bells is all about quality.
Do you buy your potatoes on contract?
No, I don’t. I get why people go for contracts because they know what they will pay all year round. Still, I can’t help thinking if the price goes silly, as it has done recently, and you’re paying a significantly lower price, you’re going to get a lower quality product. I’d much rather go with market forces throughout the year.
Do you stick to one variety or are you quite flexible with what you buy?
I prefer to stick to the same variety throughout the season, which is sagittas. When it gets to the earlies, we do have to go on to something else but we’ll always be back on sagittas as quickly as we can. Toward the end of the last season, we moved on to agria because the dry matter content on the sagittas wasn’t right and we just couldn’t fry them. We have a Dutch-style range and we basket fry, and the potatoes were just too dry. We tried various temperatures as well as various ways of chipping and storing them and we just struggled. So we went on to imports from Italy to ensure a better quality potato. We had to pay extra but it’s the quality that drives us.
When you get those spikes in prices do you put your prices up?
No, we don’t put our prices up. We just try to be careful and not give lots of chips away. All our food is boxed which helps with portion control because they can’t be overfilled. I also have a chart in the potato prep room detailing different rumbling times and how many portions they give. I go through this with the potato guys as well so they then can understand why we do what we do. For example, I will say the reason we rumble potatoes for 60 seconds instead of 90 seconds is because we get an extra 30 portions of chips. At £2.50 each, by the end of the year, we will have taken an extra £50-60,000. When they hear it put like that, they take notice!
What do you do to check the quality of your potatoes?
When we start on a new batch, I’ll get the dry matter report and the sugar content from my merchant to check they are where they should be. We haven’t got the equipment to do the dry matter testing but we have got the little strips for sugar content so we check that first. We do a frying test as well before we get a batch. So we will have a sample of six bags and we will test them to make sure that they fry how we want them to, because what fries well in one shop may not necessarily fry in yours or on your equipment. Very, very rarely do I ever have to return any to our merchant.
How do you store your potatoes?
Our potato rooms don’t have windows, which is great, and every single one is air-conditioned. If we get a particular hot day we can put the air con on to keep the room cool.
What does your prep involve?
We use timers to rumble our potatoes but the time we rumble will sometimes change depending on whether we are on the main crop or the earlies. Also, we increase the rumbling time from 60 seconds to 90 seconds when we are producing chips for the restaurant because the chips have got to be of better quality with fewer eyes. Obviously, it reduces our yield but the chips look so much better on the plate. We also dry white our chips for about 45-50 minutes before frying them to remove any excess moisture, which produces a better chip.
You mentioned basket frying, do you cook straight through or blanch?
We blanch so we can finish them and have fresh chips constantly coming out.
Do you think blanching creates a better chip?
I do. Whenever I go to a restaurant, I pay a lot more for triple-cooked chips with my steak. That tells me there must be a reason for it!
How have your chip portion sizes changed over the years?
It hasn’t. We just have one size which is a standard at 10-12oz portion for £3. Customers around here are used to having just one portion size so we’ve stuck with it.
How important is it to serve a top quality chip?
For years, I think we as an industry have neglected how important the chip is. Everybody goes on about the fish, but we sell chips with nearly everything, whether it’s a sausage or a fishcake. We have to take it seriously.
What piece of advice would you give to someone looking to improve the quality of their chips?
It’s got to start with the raw product. You’ve got to buy quality potatoes but also potatoes that suit your range. Every range is different and I know that because I’ve fried on the old, traditional ranges, Dutch ranges, round chip pans and basket pans. And constantly check what is coming out so you can stay on top of consistency. Every day, I’ll pick a tray, I’ll just dig in and get six chips out to sample. Consistency is what we are all after.
