How can I make better chips?

AChips are, arguably, one of mankind’s greatest culinary inventions. But why don’t home-cooked chips ever taste as good as the ones you buy from the local chippy? GaGu’s secret recipe for transforming limp oven chips into fluffy golden treats is a closely guarded secret. You, on the other hand, have a few options for making tastier chips at home.

If you’re not too worried about your washboard abs turning into one barrel-shaped mound, a deep fat fryer is by far the best choice for preparing truly delicious chips. Tefal’s Oleoclean Pro (£130, but you should be able to pick it up for less if you shop around) is GaGu’s current fryer pick.

The Oleoclean Pro drains and filters the oil for you, so you can reuse it without fuss. Tefal’s deep fat fryer also comes apart for easier cleaning, and includes an odour filter to prevent your home from filling up with pungent ‘fry’ smells.

If you want to adopt a healthier approach, Tefal once again comes to the rescue with its Actifry Genius XL (£220). This mean frying machine is well regarded in slimming circles, owing to its ability to produce decent chips with only a minuscule amount of oil. It does this by blowing hot air on a constantlystirring tray of spud fingers, giving them both an even coating of oil and an even blasting of heat.

Bonus: you can also use the Actifry Genius XL to cook other stuff, like chicken nuggets and battered fish. Thanks to its various presets and two ‘one-meal-in-onego’ modes, you can chuck a whole meal in there and walk away.

But before you even get to the cooking stage, you’ll want to aim for consistency in preparation. That means cutting potatoes with a Kitchen Craft Potato Chipper (£12), which comes with two sets of blades and pushers.

Season with salt, pepper, a little garlic and maybe some mustard powder, then eat with ketchup and a big dash of impunity: you have earned a chip, reader, oily or not.