Review: So Long Potato Crisps

When Americans think of "potato crisps" - dehydrated potatoes in chip-like form - most think of Pringles or Munchos, which are the category leaders. But recently, I found some very different potato crisps in Ocean State Job Lot: So Long Potato Crisps. Their marketing tagline is "So Unique, So Fun, So Snacky."

Although the flavors available are fairly standard for potato snacks (Sea Salt, Sour Cream and Chive, Cheddar, and BBQ) the form is certainly unique. Instead emulating a potato chip, So Long decided to just extrude long sheets of potato substrate and sell them just like that.

So what you get is a long, thin package of seven-inch-long tater crisp rectangles as shown in the photo at right. The package says that they're made in Latvia, so we had a good time speculating that perhaps these might be made with some clanky Soviet technology left over from the Cold War.

Okay, so they look funny. How do they taste?

Sea Salt: Pretty standard, lightly salted dehydrated potato taste. Not nearly as starchy-tasting as Pringles, and not as salty as Munchos, they have a flavor profile remarkably similar to cheap instant mashed potatoes.

BBQ: Most barbecue-flavored potato chips and crisps go pretty heavy on the tomato powder and add lots of sugar and smoke flavoring. I don't like BBQ chips very much.  So Long BBQ chips, in contrast, are much more subtle and very, very light on the tomato. There is a light aroma and taste of smoke, but they're much less aggressive than the usual product.

Sour Cream and Onion: Here again, the flavor is exceptionally subtle, almost to the point where it isn't very noticeable. The sour tang is a mere hint, and there's hardly any onion flavor at all.

Cheddar Cheese: And once again, the flavor here is more of a suggestion than a demand. You can tell they're supposed to be cheese, though, because they have a faint orange hue to them.

Each packet is about 2.6 ounces and is enough for two or three people to share. The regular retail price at Ocean State is a dollar a package (too high, IMO) but the sale price I bought them at was 3 for $1.00 (great for buying some for review.) They were okay, but so unexceptional that I won't go out of my way to purchase them again.

Review: Beer Chips

Beer chips. Potato chips made with beer.  Where do I even begin with these things?

Well, I like beer. And I like potato chips. And you know, I gotta admit that chips and beer go pretty well together.  But they don't go together this way if you know what I mean.

Beer chips are thick-cut kettle-cooked chips which are flavored with a coating of powdered beer, and there is no mistaking it. The taste of beer is quite pronounced and certainly unique in the snack universe.

And they taste disgusting. Kind of like piss. Really cheap piss. Cheaper than Pabst Blue Ribbon. Cheaper even than Falstaff or Milwaukee's Best. 

I've eaten some pretty weird stuff. Balut. Canned pig brains. A German-made cheeseburger sealed in a can. Some things have been worse than others. But Beer Chips? They're just nasty. 

PotatOH

Would you pay $1.50 or more for a single medium-sized russet potato?  What if it was individually shrink-wrapped? And came with a label telling you how to microwave it?

Photo by Roger Rice

I used to wonder if the PotatOH! company actually sold potatoes, or whether they just sold licenses and labels to supermarkets, who would then shrink-wrap and label their own taters.  But there is an actual PotatOH! website, where you can go and order a six-pack of PotatOHs for $12.66 plus shipping.

Whatever.  There really is an ass for every seat.

Blue Chip Casino Potato Chips

Lynnafred discovered these chips during our last Big Lots safari.  We'd never seen a potato chip - or any snack, for that matter - specifically designed for a casino before, so it piqued our interest.  Then we found from reading the back of the bag that Blue Chip Casino apparently gives out these chips as a gift to people who sign up for their rewards program to prove that they are, as the front of the package says, "all that and a bag of chips."

The casino/resort is located in Indiana, so there's little chance that we'd be joining one of their programs.  But we decided to buy a bag of chips just to see what manner of snack a high-end resort would think is a worthy standard bearer.

As it happens, Blue Chip Casino potato chips are exceptionally good!  They're thicker than regular chips, but thinner than standard kettle-style chips.  Yet their superior crunch and flavor tag them as probably kettle-cooked - a unique hybrid chip, bursting with spudliness and a hearty crunch but at the same time rather light and delicate. I would certainly classify them as a premium product.  I just wonder how they found their way to Big Lots.

Link:

This is Blue Chip Casino's website, detailing their extensive amenities.  Couldn't find any mention of potato chips, though.  Actually, I couldn't find any mention of these potato chips anywhere on the web at all.

Cape Cod Harvest Gold Potato Chips

Heads up, chip lovers...Cape Cod Potato Chips has a new variety hitting the shelves: Harvest Gold, made with Yukon Gold potatoes.

Lynnafred came home from the store with a bag of them the other day, excited because she's a big fan of Yukon Gold potatoes.  They're totally awesome - same hearty crunch as with Cape Cod's other kettle-cooked chips, but with a sweet and mellow taste that could almost be described as "buttery."  They're our new favorite unflavored chip.

Cape Cod Potato Chips & The Big Game Chip Switch

For several years, Maryanne and I have been buying Cape Cod's 40% Reduced Fat potato chips.  We had first tried them at a friend's house and were quite impressed that they could be so delicious - and so indistinguishable from standard kettle cooked chips.

Recently, Cape Cod has introduced two new flavors of chip to their 40% Reduced Fat lineup - Sea Salt and Vinegar and Sweet Mesquite Barbecue - and they're kicking off publicity for them with an event they call the Big Game Chip Switch. 

The idea is to offer up to your guests unmarked bowls of both regular and 40% Reduced Fat versions of Cape Cod chips and see if anyone can really tell the difference.  They've even set up a website - www.BigGameChipSwitch.com - where you can share lulzworthy stories of fooling your friends and, most importantly, enter to win a year's supply of Cape Cod Potato Chips.  Timing this activity for that "Big Football Game" is a great idea - it's estimated that grazing Americans will nom 11 million pounds of potato chips during that single broadcast.

Late last week, FedEx showed up at my door with a big box.  Inside there were six bags of Cape Cod Potato Chips (one bag each of their 40% Reduced Fat chip flavors, and one bag each of the corresponding Classic chips) along with a letter explaining the whole Chip Switch thing and asking if we'd mind doing a Chip Switch and writing about it.  Since we were having a bunch of people over for dinner on Sunday, we thought it would be a hoot.   So as our guests arrived, we put out the various Cape Cod chips in a blind tasting and asked everyone if they could tell which ones were the reduced fat versions.  Our tasters ranged in age from my 8-year-old granddaughter to my you'd-never-know-she-was-in-her-70's mom, so we had a good spectrum of palates here.

All tastings were done double-blind:  Identical serving pieces were marked on the bottom where the marks couldn't be seen.  The chips were poured out in the kitchen and handed off to someone else who didn't know which was which and who randomly placed them on the dining room table so that the person in the kitchen would also not know which bowl had been filled with which chip.

Photo by Cape Cod Potato Chips

The Sea Salt and Vinegar chips were the first ones we served.  I love vinegar chips - they're my second-favorite flavor behind cracked pepper - and apparently, everyone but the kids (who gamely tried them before announcing that the vinegar wasn't exactly to their liking) enjoyed them, too.  And every single person correctly identified the classic chips over the Reduced Fat version!  No one could really put their finger on exactly how they could tell them apart, but we decided it was probably because vinegar has a way of cutting through fat anyway, and the subtle flavor and mouthfeel differences between the two were enough to tip everyone off.  One thing I should mention, however:  Even though everyone could tell the difference between the classic Sea Salt & Vinegar chips and the 40% Reduced Fat Seas Salt & Vinegar chips, there were no preferences for one over the other - they liked the flavor equally.

This first tasting set the stage for lulz, since now everyone figured that they'd be able to identify the Reduced Fat chips easily after their initial triumph.  Since Maryanne and I have been buying the Reduced Fat original chips for years and have never been able to tell the difference, we were grinning when we set them out as the next tasting.  Everyone had some chips and voiced their opinions of which one was which before the Big Reveal...and no one got it right!  The room erupted into laughter when my brother-in-law Jim yelled out in surprise, "No way!  Those can't be the low fat chips, they're too good!"

By the time the Sweet Mesquite Barbecue chips came out, everyone was laughing and joking about whether they'd be able to tell them apart and were talking about chips and snacks in general.  Barbecue chips are an especial favorite of 8-year-old Emily, who made no secret about her preference and her delight in having two bowls of her faves placed on the table.  "These are awesome," she said, "I don't think they're different at all.  I bet these are the same chips."  By this time, the adults were carefully noshing, trying their best to figure out which chip was which, but again the tasters were met with total failure.  A few people followed Emily's cue and admitted they couldn't tell which was which, but those who said they could identify the Reduced Fat chips were again universally wrong.

Cape Cod is proud of coming up with a reduced fat chip that they say is pretty much indistinguishable from classically-made chips, and justifiably so.  We had a great time doing the Chip Switch on our family and friends.  It got our dinner party off to a roaring fun start, and it got our guests buzzing about Cape Cod chips (which is what the Cape Cod folks intended, I'm sure) even if they were able to tell which of the vinegar chips were the new version.  

Links:

Cape Cod Potato Chip's website - check out the many varieties and flavors of Cape Cod chips and popcorn.

Cape Cod's Big Game Chip Switch website - Read about the Chip Switch promo, share your own Chip Switch stories, and enter for a chance to win a year's supply of Cape Cod Potato Chips.

Wendy's Natural-Cut Fries with Sea Salt

So, Wendy's is rolling out this "new style" of french fries which they're calling "Natural Cut Fries With Sea Salt."  Russet spuds, peels left on, shoestring cut (fairly standard "Boardwalk Fries" if you know what I mean) sprinkled with "sea salt" as if that's going to make a big flavor difference on a handful of greasy fried taters.

It shouldn't come as a big surprise that the new fries aren't any better - or even substantially different - than any other burger joint fries.  They're okay thirty seconds out of the fryer and they go downhill fast from there, at first getting kind of soggy in their own steam and then just getting tough and cold and nasty when the heat leaves.  Hey, even McDonald's fries - supposedly the industry leader - suck when they get cold.  Wendy's fries are going to continue to run a distant third in the Fast Food Wars, if only because they don't have to get cold all the way through before they suck.

I really don't understand what the hell Wendy's was thinking here.  What was so wrong with their fries the way they were?  I've never heard anyone ever complain about them, so it isn't like there was some huge public outcry to have a "new improved" fried potato on the menu.  Won't surprise me a bit if regular Wendy's customers raise hell about these new fries, though.

Cape Cod Potato Chips - New Flavors and Old Favorites

A short time ago, the friendly folks at Cape Cod Potato Chips sent me a box of assorted varieties of chips and popcorns to sample and review. The popcorn was a big hit with my friends and family. It took us a little longer to try all of the potato chip flavors - the package included old favorites as well as tasty new ones - but after sharing the deliciousness for the past couple of weeks, I'm ready to tell you about Cape Cod's flavors.

Classic and 40% Reduced Fat: When I was a kid, just learning how to cook, I heard the story about how potato chips were "invented." You've probably heard it too: George Crum, a chef in Saratoga Springs NY, was fed up with a restaurant patron who kept sending back his fried potatoes complaining they were too thick and soggy. Chef Crum, thoroughly pissed off, sliced the final batch paper-thin and fried them so crispy they couldn't be eaten with a fork. The diner loved them and "Saratoga Chips" were born. That story inspired me to try to make my own potato chips in the kitchen; they were pretty good but took a lot of work for an impatient teenager, so I only cooked my own a few times a year.

I was in my twenties when I first tried Cape Cod's Classic chips - thick cut and kettle cooked, with just the right amount of salt added to enhance the flavor. I think they were the first commercial "kettle" style potato chip I'd ever tried, and they were great. I'm happy to say that their quality has never wavered - every time I've opened a bag of Cape Cod Classic chips, they've been as good as the first bag I ever dug into in the mid-80's.

A couple of years ago, some friends suggested I try the 40% Reduced Fat version of the Classic chips. The Reduced Fat version is truly amazing; Cape Cod has managed to remove almost have the fat from their chip without any reduction at all in flavor, quality, or mouthfeel. Seriously, it is extremely difficult - if not impossible - to tell the difference between the two in a blind tasting. If you love your potato chips but need to cut down on your fat intake, Cape Cod's 40% Reduced Fat chips can help you.

Robust Russet: Russet potatoes, having a higher sugar content than some other varieties, cook up darker and more flavorful than regular chips. Cape Cod's Robust Russet chips are Lynnafred's favorites; she like the full-bodied flavor and strong crunch. I like them because the flavor stands up well and doesn't get "lost" when enjoying chips 'n' dips. If you're a fan of lightly cooked chips, leave these on the shelf. Cape Cod says people either "love them or hate them" and if you cant crunch into a darker chip without thinking "burnt," these just aren't for you.

New Buttermilk Ranch was an instant favorite with everyone who tried it. Not too salty with a delicious, tangy Ranch flavor, this was the first bag we opened (to accompany bacon-cheeseburgers for supper) and that bag never saw the dawn. I loved them with a simple sour cream dip - the chips magically turned it into Ranch dip! - while Lynnafred and my wife Maryanne enjoyed them right out of the bag. They were also pretty damn good added atop deli-sliced turkey in a turkey sandwich (adding both taste and crunch.) Don't give me that look - you know you're going to try it now that I gave you the idea.

Sea Salt and Vinegar: This is one of my all-time favorite potato chip flavors - I love the sharp, acidic taste of vinegar (and that's why I'm such a fan of all kinds of pickles.) Vinegar is a natural enhancement for potatoes, and Cape God gets the balance just right with these chips. There's just enough vinegar to "sharpen the edges" and not so much that the flavor overpowers the spuds. Probably my favorite of the flavored varieties.

Cheddar Jack and Sour Cream: These cheesy chips are one of Lynnafred's favorites. The combination of sour cream and cheddar works well together and give the chips a flavor very much like Kraft Macaroni & Cheese.

Sweet Mesquite Barbecue: Normally, I hate barbecue-flavored potato chips, and I can truly say that I would never - ever - have gone out and bought this variety if Cape Cod hadn't sent a bag for review. What a surprise to find out how good these were! Sweet and spicy, with a delicious tomato background, the smoky mesquite flavor is mellow and soft-edged. Smoke flavoring is too often applied with a heavy hand, leaving an "ashtray" flavor, but not with these chips. Maryanne mentioned that they'd be great with grilled burgers, and I agree. Sweet Mesquite Barbecue chips are winners.

Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper: There are a lot of flavor notes going on in these chips - sweet, salty, pepper, garlic I think, a hint of buttermilk - and I just don't understand why chip manufacturers can't simply make a chip with salt and black pepper and that's it. I would love a chip like that, but I haven't been able to find one (check the ingredient labels and you'll see.)

Parmesan and Roasted Garlic: From the instant the bag is opened, there is no doubt that mellow roasted garlic is the foremost flavor in this chip, and the parmesan cheese takes a back seat to it. I couldn't believe how polarizing this flavor was when I put them out at a party - people either loved them and went back for seconds by the handful, or they hated them - hated the very smell of them and wouldn't take more than a nibble for the sake of tasting a sample. I thought they were pretty good. They went great with a sliced-pork-roast sandwich.

Jalapeno and Aged Cheddar: I liked these. The cheddar flavor went nicely with the jalapeno heat, which gave a mild-to-medium burn and a long, lingering warm finish. (These chips weren't included with the review package I recieved, so I went out and bought a bag. Glad I did.)

I hope the new flavors are well-received and become as successful as the old favorites. Cape Cod makes great snacks and they're always a top choice when I'm looking for kettle chips.


Links:

Cape Cod Potato Chips website

Direct link to Cape Cod's potato chip page.

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Sargento Bistro Blend Cheeses

One of the local grocery stores had a sale on Sargento's Bistro Blends cheeses, so I picked up a handful of different types. I have to say, I was favorably impressed.

Back in the dark ages, cheese was almost never sold pre-shredded. Gaaah...we bought our cheese in blocks that were carved by hand...and we liked it! Now get off my lawn! When shredded cheese was available, it was usually more expensive per pound than solid blocks of cheese.

I'm not sure when that changed, but gradually more shredded cheeses were introduced and as more people went for the convenience, the price started to drop and more varieties were added. Shredded cheese nowadays isn't any more expensive than any other kind per pound. Sargento, with their huge line of shredded cheeses and cheese blends, may very well be the King of Shredded Cheese by now.

There are six Bistro Blends varieties - three Mexican, two Italian, and one American - and all of them are top-notch:

• Taco Shredded Cheese - Mild but flavorful spice blend and a good combination of cheeses gives a really authentic taste. Great in omelets and melted onto cheeseburgers; also pretty good sprinkled into a non-stick frying pan and browned on both sides as a fried cheese snack. Hey, don't knock it until you're tried it.

• Chipotle Cheddar - Firm orange cheddar with real chipotle peppers tossed in. Spicier than the other varieties, but mild enough to appeal to a wide market. Excellent in grilled cheese sandwiches - or in their trendier cousin the quesadilla. Also mighty fine in omelets.

• Nacho & Taco - A blend of mild cheddar and jack cheeses, with some seasonings and a bit of natural lime flavor. I used this stuff to make a big platter of nachos for Wings and Nachos Night and it isn't bad - but don't rely on it to deliver all the savory flavory seasonings you might be used to. It's not very kicky.

• Mozzarella and Asiago with Roasted Garlic - Really nice: Beautiful meltability and subtle garlic flavor. Sargento's website gives a few recipe ideas, but I just used it as a replacement for straight mozzarella in a couple of my standard recipes and the effect was quite good. Make a great pizza cheese, especially with spinach and bacon toppings; it was also delicious on eggplant parmesan.

• Mozzarella with Sun-Dried Tomatoes and Basil - One of our favorite shredded cheeses, Sargento really got this one right. The flavors are really well-proportioned and blend together so beautifully. Perfect as a pizza topping, and really outstanding as a quesadilla cheese, too. My daughter likes it sprinkled on salads.

• Sharp Wisconsin and Vermont Cheddar with Real Bacon - Good quality cheese with good flavor, but let's face it: what really makes this stuff special is the bacon. Sargento is generous with it, too, and you can smell the smoky pork goodness as soon as you open the bag. We used it to make Twice Baked Potatoes which turned out so decent I've put the recipe below.
  

Any of these Sargento blends are worth a try, especially since they aren't any more expensive than regular ol' cheese.

Twice Baked Potatoes
Serves 6

3 large Russet potatoes
2 tbsp butter
1/4 cup sour cream
1 tbsp prepared mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
1 package of Sargento Sharp Wisconsin & Vermont Cheddar with Real Bacon
Milk, as needed
Good Hungarian paprika

Bake the potatoes in a 400 F oven for about an hour, or until done.

Cut the potatoes in half lengthwise; scoop out the centers into a bowl, leaving a quarter-inch-thick shell behind. Set the shells aside.

Mash the potato with the butter, sour cream, mustard, a touch of salt, and freshly ground black pepper to taste. Work the cheese in with a fork while the potato mixture is still hot. If needed, add some milk, a tiny little bit at a time, to give the potato mixture a smooth and creamy consistency.

Pile the filling back into the potato shells and sprinkle generously with good, flavorful paprika. Pop the spuds back into the oven for 15 - 20 minutes at 375 F until heated through and golden brown on top.

Link:

Sargento's Bistro Cheese website. It plays music, which is pretty cheesy too.

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Sealtest Chipnics - A Blast From The Past

I was going through some old promotional cookboods, when I found this advertisement for Sealtest Chipnics.

Chipnics, introduced in 1964, were the very first crispy potato chip-like snack. They were marketed in boxes instead of bags, and Sealtest called them "Homogenized Potato Chips."

They proved to be so popular that within five years, Chipnics had three competitors: Chipos, made with potato and rice flour, by General Mills; Pringles by Proctor & Gamble; and Munchos by Frito-Lay. Pringles, with their stackable shape, unique packaging, and masterful marketing, quickly became the market leader, leaving Chipnics and Chipos to quietly fade away. Munchos are still available, but Frito-Lay doesn't advertise them very much and they are a distant second in the "potato crisp" category.

You might notice that all of these brands were originally sold and labeled as "potato chips." This marketing angle was hotly contested by traditional potato chip producers, who eventually won out and forced "homogenized chips" to be labeled in the US as "potato crisps" instead. Proctor & Gamble fought long and hard against that ruling, even going so far as presenting proof that Pringles were "nutritionally identical" to regular chips.

Of course, forty years later it hardly matters - Pringles are one of P&G's most popular brands, enjoyed by people around the world. And it all started with some knucklehead eating chips in a sauna.

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Sargento Chipotle Cheddar And Spicy Twice-Baked Potatoes

I'm trying to figure out why it took me so long to notice the Sargento Bistro Blends Chipotle Cheddar shredded cheese in the supermarket's ever-more-humongous Cheese Region. It might be because there are now five hundred different types of bagged, pre-shredded cheese hanging in that refrigerated area (not including the store brand varieties.) Or it might be because "chipotle" stuff is so common nowadays that I don't even notice when some corporate food giant decides to add them to another substance and slap a red chile pepper on the front. Doesn't matter, I found some last week and brought it home, and discovered that it really isn't all that bad.

A somewhat dry, medium-sharp orange cheddar, it wouldn't really have much going for it if it weren't for the addition of the chipotle peppers. It works out well for the combination, because the mildish cheese offers an unobtrusive backdrop for the smoky heat of the chipotles. While not exactly the boldest kick in the ass ever to come out of a bag of cheese, the peppers still add a deeper flavor and a pleasant zing. My daughter loves it for quesadillas and cheese omelets.

Meanwhile, I had a bunch of leftover baked potatoes that I wanted to use up. Twice-baked potatoes are always welcome, but let's be honest: they're boring. But would they still be boring if they were twice baked with Chipotle Cheddar?

Spicy Twice-Baked Potatoes

Baked Potatoes (cooled enough to handle, or even chilled is OK )
Sour Cream
Milk
Tapatio Hot Sauce
Chipotle Cheddar
Paprika
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut each baked potato in half the long way, and scoop out the center. Reserve the skins. Mash the potato with sour cream, milk, and hot sauce, then mix well with chipotle cheddar cheese and paprika. Stuff the skins with the cheese-and-potato mixture, season to taste with salt and pepper. Bake uncovered in a 400 F oven until piping hot and melty.

Sorry I don't have exact measurements in the ingredient list - potatoes vary greatly in size. To help you with the proportions, I used somewhat small 4-inch-long Russets, so for each potato (i.e. two halves) I used:

3 tablespoons of sour cream
2 tablespoons of milk
About a teaspoon of Tapatio (you can use any hot sauce you like, but I don't like Tabasco because it's too vinegary.)
A big ol' heaping quarter cup of chipotle cheese (call it 6 tablespoons or so)
A quarter teaspoon of paprika.

They turned out great, and were a big hit. Even my daughter liked them, and she usually doesn't care for twice-baked spuds.

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Refried Mashed Potatoes

We use leftover mashed potatoes in a number of different ways - potato pancakes, Duchess potatoes, fishcakes - but this simple preparation is one of our favorites. It's quick and easy to do, and once you have it started over the burner, it really doesn't need a lot of attention while other things get cooked. All you need to do is give the pan a flip now and again until you're ready to serve.

Start with a 14-inch nonstick pan. Put it over medium heat and add 2 tablespoons of butter and some olive oil. Melt the two together until the butter is foamy.

Add two thinly-sliced scallions and two minced cloves of garlic. If the potatoes you are using are underseasoned, you can take this opportunity to add salt, pepper, and perhaps some paprika or other seasonings. Keep the pan over medium heat and sautee until the onions and garlic are softened and becoming translucent, but not browned.

Add leftover mashed potatoes to the pan. Turn the heat up to high and press the spuds down over the scallions and garlic. Allow the potatoes to brown on one side, then shake the pan a few times and flip the spuds over to brown on the other side.

Continue to periodically shake the pan and flip the potatoes for as long as you like, incorporating the lacy browned bits into the body of the mashed potatoes, until the spuds are heated all the way through and reach the degree of brownness you desire. You can turn the heat down to medium and give the pan a little attention now and again while you prepare the other components of your meal - the potatoes only get better as you brown sections and flip the pan to bring more potatoes into contact with the heat.

Part of what makes this side dish so delicious is the wonderful contrast in textures offered by the browned sections and the creamy mash.

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