French Fry Diary 656: Passover Potato Chips

A strange thing happens around this time every year. Shop-Rite starts carrying lots of off-brand potato chips (and potato sticks), one that even I, regarded as a chip expert by some, have never heard of. It's because of Passover, and like the sweeter tasting yellow cap Coca-Cola, there is extra need for kosher potato chips.

Herr's and other major brands offer kosher or parve potato chips, but as I said, Shop-Rite brings in more specialty items during this time of year. They are usually placed in one special section of the store, the Shop-Rite I visited in Cherry Hill had a larger than usual area. I plucked a couple samples from the display to try, and review of appropriate.

First up is Kettle Chips BBQ from Manischewitz, the king of kosher products, best known for their wine, matzo, and even potato latkes. These chips are pretty good on the healthy scale, with no transfats, no cholesterol, no preservatives, and no artificial flavors. The chips are thin with a nice crunch, heavy seasoned but with a mild smoke flavor.

Bloom's is a company that specializes in kosher products. They "search the globe to bring you the best," including cakes, candies, chocolate syrup, potato stix, potato chips, and potato snack fries. I chose one of the last bunch, Bloom's Bar-B-Q Fries.

After tasting these flat French fry shaped potato strips, I'm glad I opted for the barbecue flavor, because otherwise these flat (in more ways than one) things would have been flavorless. I did not like these. At all.

Next up are the Diddles, no seriously, that's what they're called. These potato snacks made from potato flakes are imported from Israel and distributed by the Paskesz Candy Co. I picked up the Diddles B-B-Q Potato Snacks. Yes, they're called Diddles. These are hollow cylinders similar in texture to flavorless cheese puffs and not in a good way. They did not smell good when I opened the bag and did not taste much better. Ick. Seriously if you told me these were made of styrofoam, I'd be inclined to believe you.

Lastly I tried the Lieber's offering. After Diddles, I was hopeful that this last bag would be more, oh I don't know, conventional. Referred to as simply Lieber's Ripple Potato Chips and being made from only potatoes, cottonseed oil, and salt, these looked like exactly what I needed.

These chips were quite nicely thick with good ridges, perfect dipping chips. There were a bit salty however, and while I like salt, especially on potato chips, this was a bit much. Also, there were a lot of black spots and burnt edges, things you don't usually see anymore in the big brand names. All in all, a decent chip, except for the salt.

So we have a weak two out of four for this selection of Passover potato snacks. Perhaps I selected badly. Any recommendations for next time?

French Fry Diary 615: Tommy's! Roasted Cajun Potatoes

I saw this at the Shop-Rite and had to grab it for later inspection. This bag of steam able potatoes (usually not a good sign) just emanated fun with its packaging. Tommy's! (complete with exclamation mark) Roasted Cajun Potatoes just looked like it would be worth the price of admission, good or bad. I was sold.

Now Tommy's! is not the southern California burger chain nor the famous Los Angeles burger joint, it's apparently its own thing, connected to the healthy freezer food retailer Tommy's Superfoods. This packaging depicting the cowboy with the gator is slightly different than what I could find online. Keeping with the Superfoods line these are vegan, non-GMO, BPA free, POFA free, with no transfats.

They are however microwave steamable, and for French fries, even healthy ones, that's often not good. They can be nuked in the bag, in a microwave safe plate, or even just fried on the stovetop in a skillet. That last one is probably how I should have done these, maybe next time. In the nuke, the blew inflated like microwave popcorn and it filled the space with damp steam.

These potato wedges besides being 'blended' with roasted corn, and onions, are also seasoned with Tommy's! Cajun Style Baby spices. Okay, truth, once these potatoes are on the plate, they smell good, but they are not pretty. The mess reminded me a bit of ill-prepared breakfast potatoes at an abandoned buffet. It's a good thing they taste so good.

The potato wedges don't have crisp or crunch because of the cooking method, but they're also not wet it soggy. This is a solid cook, and they have a baked potato quality, soft and hot. The corn and onions are a surprising addition and the spices pack quite a hot kick.

I liked these quite a bit. I'm looking forward to the next time so I can try the stovetop method, or maybe reheating them in the oven to get a bit of a crisp. Recommended.

French Fry Diary 601: The Little Potato Company

The Little Potato Company packages little white, red, blue, purple and other types of potatoes at some of the better groceries around. They're awesome baked, and maybe rolled in onion soup mix. I like the company a lot.

I saw these at Shop-Rite a couple weeks back and knew I had to pick it up, both for dinner and to write about. From The Little Potato Company, these were microwave ready fresh creamer potatoes, tint red and white potatoes in a nuke box. Five minutes later, throw on the 'savory herb' seasoning and you have a serving of hot potatoes. Like many products of this type, I had to see it to believe it.

During the cook time in the nuke there was much steam sizzling sound and a few times cooking pops. Toward the end of the quick cook, a baked potato aroma could indeed be smelled. It should noted though that the clear plastic cover was pretty hard to remove, even after I cut it, it remained difficult to remove. I had to add some spray butter to make the seasoning adhere.

These are quite good actually, and I might add that the 'savory herb' seasoning has tiny bits of bacon in it. These microwave packs also come in Zesty Italian and Garlic Parsley varieties. I found these were best cut in half, spray-buttered then nuked for another minute. Your mileage may vary, but either way, these are really good.

French Fry Diary 551: Fried Rice Potatoes

I was in Shop-Rite picking up a few items for dinner and snacks while we were buried in one of the big snow storms a few days back, when something in the fresh and hot Chinese buffet section (Asian Chef by Mikado, according to the receipt attached) of the store caught my eye. Fried Rice Potatoes.

There, amongst a couple different varieties of chicken, was a serving pan of thick potato chunks cut crinkle cut style, looking similar to Nathan's fries, with pepper chips, sitting under a heat lamp and a sign that read 'Fried Rice Potatoes.' There was no rice involved, and neither the server nor Google were much help so I don't know where the name was derived from, or even if it was a typo.

So I scooped up some honey chicken, some teriyaki chicken, and a healthy portion of the fried rice potatoes and headed home, anxiously waiting to reheat and enjoy this treat for later.

When I got home I reheated two ways, microwave and baked in the oven. As might be expected, the baked food was better. The potatoes had a solid baked potato vibe plus a kick from whatever they were marinating in, very tasty. The chicken wasn't bad either. I will definitely be getting this again.

French Fry Diary 511: Nathan's Cheddar Cheese Crinkle Fries

These aren't the great French fries that Nathan's has at their restaurants (except for the one at the Moorestown Mall food court, which is inexplicably always staffed but never open when I've been there recently), these are corn meal snacks. I took a pic when I first saw them at Shop-Rite, and finally got around to buying a bag.

They also come in Honey Mustard and Chili Cheese, but I opted for the Cheddar Cheese Crunchy Crinkle Fries, mostly because those first two flavors really didn't grab me. The bag has both the great story and history of Nathan's as well as the ingredient list that verifies that potatoes had nothing to do with these fries.

Basically these are mediocre cheese curls but a lot of effort was put into making them look very close to how regular Nathan's French fries look. It works to a certain extent. The flavoring is uneven on the fries so you get a lot of cheesiness on some and hardly any on others. These are pretty good, but not great. If I want cheese curls, I think I might go for the real thing rather than these.

Random Tater Pic of the Day #93

Nathan's new Crunchy Crinkle Fries snacks, captured on display at Shop-Rite.

French Fry Diary 373: Sensible Portions Sweet Barbecue Potato Straws

As one might imagine I stroll up and down the snack aisle in the supermarket a lot. When I see something that catches my eye and might be good for the blog, I'll grab it. Such was the case at ShopRite the other day with these Sensible Portions Potato Straws, and of course I went for the Sweet Barbecue flavor.

Forewarning, I found them in the healthier section of the snack aisle, and probing truth in advertising, these are all natural, with no preservatives, no cholesterol and no transfats. They're even kosher. But like most potato snacks, they are barely potato. They're made from potato flour, that's potato flakes and potato starch. Sound appetizing? Yeah, exactly. That's why I got one of the flavored kinds, because usually the plain version of these types of snacks taste like cardboard.

Fortunately that is not the case here, or maybe it is, but the not unpleasant sweet barbecue flavor covers it up. They are quite tasty and addictive, and luckily the portion size is noted on the bag in a few places to make sure you know. It's thirty-eight straws in the seven ounce bag I bought. And as someone who watches portion sizes, let me assure you, that's a very big serving.

The Potato Straws themselves are two inches long each, and the size of shoestring French fries otherwise. It is interesting to note they are really straws, in that they are hollow. Like a Twizzler, or a real straw, you can even drink through them. They are also terrific for dipping.

All in all, this is an excellent find, and a tasty snack. I will be picking these Sensible Portions Potato Straws up again for sure.

French Fry Diary 364: Select 7 Panko Breaded Onion Petals

I had a long day, I was hungry, and it was late so my options were few. So when I approached the 7-Eleven, like an oasis in the desert, I knew I would be stopping for a snack. I got a hot dog. It's easier to ignore how long they've been there and what they might be made of at that hour. And Cool Dog, the first stop for dogs, wasn't open.

I was still hungry and was aisle by aisle shopping the 7-Eleven, and I found these - the Select 7 Panko Breaded Onion Petals. 7-Eleven or not, I snatched them up. I have recently been on a Panko drive so I had to have them.

Once home I found they could be cooked three ways - microwave, baked, or deep fry. Deep frying is a lot of work, and anyone who's had supposedly crunchy food microwaved knows it rarely works, so that was out too. Baking it was. For the record, I gave them a few more minutes in the oven than they suggested. And the Aussie Sauce will be saved for The Bride and her salads. It is just salad dressing, is it not? I myself prefer barbecue sauce for my fried onion treats.

Baked they are quite crunchy and tasty, with more of a hint of Panko than the ShopRite Panko Onion Rings promised. And the portion provided by the small box is enormous. Despite the 7-Eleven store brand, these are very good. I like them a lot. I look forward to trying them deep fried, and maybe even microwaved.

French Fry Diary 340: ShopRite Panko Breaded Onion Rings

When I saw these in the freezer section of my local ShopRite, I was really excited. Panko bread crumbs are the gold standard for onion rings, and being a store brand meant they were cheap. Also being frozen, it meant easy prep. I immediately snagged two bags of these babies.

First impressions were not great when I opened the bag. They looked pretty average, not covered in big crunchy Panko bread crumbs or made from giant whole onions as I had come expect from places like Red Robin and Bahama Breeze. And now I'm aware that 'Panko' is a way of cooking bread but it still bothered me a bit that word appeared nowhere in the ingredients.

I still couldn't wait to try them out and I was thrilled to see directions for both deep frying and baking. Feeling both industrious and hungry, I decided to do both.

I only did five rings of varying sizes in the deep fryer. They cooked very quickly and came out with a very crunchy outside and a hot juicy oniony inside. They were a bit greasy, but they were cooked in oil. Again, not what I expect in a Panko, but pretty good.

The baked batch, on the other hand, were like Baby Bear's bed, just right. Still crunchy, but tender as well, and not one bit greasy - ah, the wonder of baking. I put some seasoning on them, dipped them in BBQ sauce and they were great. Easy and great.

French Fry Diary 191: 7-Select Onion Rings

This is a review of 7-Eleven's Onion Rings, honest, it's just going to take a long time to get there. Due to traffic. Bear with me.

Okay, it was Free Slurpee Day 2010, or 7-Eleven's birthday, your choice, and I want to get my free Slurpee, specifically the Coke Slurpee, the granddaddy of Slurpees in my opinion. As opposed to recent years where Free Slurpee Day was all day, the folks at 7-Eleven restricted the celebration to certain hours so my friends and I were on a timetable to get there.

Yes, there's a 7-Eleven right in town, but it's not as easy to get there as one might think. You see, I live in Marlton, and the state of new Jersey has decided that circles, a traffic phenomenon, which has been simplicity for NJ drivers for almost a century, are now too hard to navigate. Why we have to bow to the idiot minds of out of state drivers too dumb to drive in a circle is beyond me, but now, no more circles. So they are eradicating the Marlton Circle for an overpass.

This construction has been going on for years, and quite honestly I see no end in sight. It has effectively divided my town into two towns. I am now, thanks to the construction, which seems busiest and loudest at three in the morning by the way when folks are trying to sleep, cut off from the Main Street of my town - where the 7-Eleven is.

I could walk there, if I wanted to jump multiple barriers and brave crazed and enraged traffic patterns, but that's just nuts. Walking has become a preferred travel option of late with the construction. For instance, it takes me two minutes to walk to the local Shop-Rite, however, if I wanted to go by car, it would take almost twenty-two minutes. Please, tell me how this is easier. The circle was terrific, and easy. And it got me to 7-Eleven quickly. Thank you, state of New Jersey, for ruining yet another good thing.

So after a couple hours, we finally got to 7-Eleven. Lo and behold we were greeted by a sign on the door that said "out of cups, no more free Slurpees." Actually the grammar and spelling were much worse, but that's beside the point. We highly suspected that the clerk was tired of giving out free Slurpees honestly.

Determined to get my Coke Slurpee fix, I bought one, because, really, with the construction, who knew when I would be able to get to 7-Eleven again? Something else caught my eye though, the 7-Select Onion Rings, regular flavor. See? I told you this was a relatively on-topic review.

At first I thought, at seventy-nine cents, that these were simply a cheap store brand of Funyuns. I mean, come on, how can you beat seventy-nine cents, right? These are onion-flavored rings of course, no real onion involved, but that's okay because the portion size is excellent (especially for the price, and there is 0 transfat.

The flavor comes from onion powder but really gives them their kick, and their addictive charm, is the sugar, and the brown sugar. The brown sugar just jumps right out at you in every bite. These are really good, I love 'em. I just wish there was a 7-Eleven closer than the other side of the construction so I could get them more often. Word is they also come in Louisiana Hot flavor as well.

Next time, more favorite fried food, and less bitching about traffic and construction. I promise.

French Fry Diary 138: Jack 'n Jill Potato Chips, Barbeque Flavor

I go to the Asian Food Market a lot. I know this might surprise some of you out there, but even though I am a catastrophically picky eater, I do like to cook. And an amazing variety of interesting spices and other fun stuff can be had at these Asian places that you can't find at your friendly neighborhood Shop Rite or even Whole Foods.

This particular trip to the Asian Food Market in Barclay Center on Route 70 was to find my current white whale - French fries in a can. This Calbee and/or Jagabee product has been eluding me for quite some time, and this trip didn't prove successful either. If anyone knows where I can find these things in the South Jersey/Philadelphia area, please let me know.

However I did pick up a couple bags of Jack 'n Jill Potato Chips, specifically the Barbeque Flavor ones. Despite the name, Jack 'n Jill is part of a huge corporation called Universal Robina in the Phillipines, and that's pretty much why the Asian Food Market is the only place I've seen these chips.

The chips have a mild but appropriately hot regular barbeque flavor, but there is something else about them - a grainy yet not unpleasant something extra. A quick look at the ingredients shows all the normal bbq chip stuff and two other things. Palm oil is different and also rusk powder, which comes from an Asian and African biscuit similar to milk toast. Interesting.

I like them. And at a buck a bag, the price is right, especially when I couldn't find what I was initially looking for. Thank you, Asian Food Market!