I've tried making my own oven chips but they never seem to taste as good as Mccain's or store bought ones, can any help me and tell me what I'm doing wrong?

I tend to cut the potato into chips, parboil them, then sprinkle a bit of olive oil on them before cooking in the oven for around 40 mins, but they taste really bland and I prefer the taste of the store bought ones can anyone help?

It might be the olive oil. Try a lighter oil like sunflower or groundnut.

I always par-boil and then fry my chips, twice if I've got the time. I do potato wedges in the oven though, par-boil them, a drizzle of oil and then sprinkle with salt, pepper and cayenne pepper.

Oven chips are pretty poor in my book, always a last resort for me, I've always found homemade taste better so you're definitely doing something wrong!

Potato choice? Use Maris Pipers. Add salt n pepper maybe?

Let me know how you get on, wouldn't mind trying this.

McCains use sunflower oil. Olive oil isn't great for cooking at high temperatures and you probably want to be knocking around the 220c temperature to make sure the chips "brown".

Also, don't McCains use some kind of coating on their oven hips?

I agree with the other posters who suggest that you should try using sunflower oil and add salt'n'pepper or other seasoning of choice at the same time.

Btw. I used to only use Mccains oven chips, but recently tried Iceland's steak and straight cut varieties. I not only found them to taste considerably better than Mccains, but also cost approx. quarter of the price.

Therefore, a definite recommend from me!

I have many methods of frying chips depending on time or effort.

I deep fry them though.

Maris pipers, parboiled in slightly salted water. Drain and spread out on kitchen paper to cool. Then, and this is the most important bit- melt Beef Dripping and heat until when you dip a chip in, it bubbles- but not too madly. Lower chip basket in gently and fry until golden and crispy. Perfect!

I made my own tonight, was a mix of normal and sweat potato chips. I just par boiled them, and made a mix of corn flour and normal flour about a table spoon of each with salt and pepper, pored it in the pan over the chips after they had been drained shook them about and repeated with some vegetable oil spread them on a baking tray and baked for about 35 minutes, much nicer than normal frozen chips

Are you still talking about oven chips? What basket? Wouldn't the beef dripping negate any healthy benefits of oven chips?

Home made chips will never taste the same as frozen bags because they're processed food.

If you want to make oven chips at home, they're always going to taste like small roast potatoes, because essentially that's what they'll be.

I cook them in goose fat, at gas mark 6 in the centre of the oven. I don't like them cooked hotter than that, or on the top shelf.

Don't cook them crispy like roast potatoes usually are, just enough for them to be soft and barely golden on the outside. If you want them a bit closer to chip shop chips, take the cooked chips out of the roaster onto a plate with kitchen paper, then cover them in tin foil before putting them back into the oven (which is now switched off) on the lowest shelf for 5-10 minutes to soften them.

Because your chips are potatoes and oil. Oven chips...well look on the packet.

That sentence means nothing at all.

I'm sure you're intelligent enough to understand it, really.

You're doing it wrong if you use a deep filled roasting tin, they are just going to come out greasy and soggy, better on a flat baking tray with a small amount of oil or even one of those 1 cal spray oils

Absolutely. In my experience, a small surplus of oil on the surface of the roaster/tray somehow draws its way up the potatoes to the top as they cook, and results in perfectly cooked home-made oven chips. You don't need to turn them half way through. Too much oil leaves them greasy with a soft surface and not enough just leaves you with dried-out potatoes that don't taste of chips.

That's after basting them all in oil first. Spooning/poring the right amount of oil into the tray in the first place is a matter of practice. You judge that upon the amount of chips. I also use a thick gauge roaster that I place with the oil over a hob to heat it before I tip in the chips from the pan (after boiling). I then turn each chip with a fork to cover it in hot oil and put the final results into the oven to cook.

I roast them for 30-40 minutes and they come out with barely any oil left at the bottom. I prefer to use a roaster rather than a baking tray, simply because the hot oil does spit a bit, and the high sides of a roaster catches them. Whereas a flat tray allows the oil to spit into the oven.

I think the way you dry the chips after boiling them is important. The drier they are, the better they will be. But the drier they become, the more potato you'll lose to the surface of the pan when you toss them to abrase the surface. So you have to strike a balance.

Once you perfect oven chips with the right variety of potato, oil and methods, you'll never go back to deep frying in the home!

But... all things considered... nothing will ever beat your favourite chip shop!

If your going to the effort of making your own chips then may as well deep fry them. You will never get great tasting chips by oven cooking.

Par boil. Allow to dry. Deep fry on low as possible for about 8mins. Allow to cool. Deep fry on high until golden. Perfection.

It does. It means that you are going to have real trouble recreating something at home that is full of artificial processes to make it taste nice.

and I'm sure you're not intelligent enough to realise what "processed" means.

"Artificial processes" is more buzzwords that mean nothing.

So how do you recreate oven chips at home then?

Read the thread. Why are you asking me?

I can't agree with that, nothing cooked in the oven can beat a good fried chip. The best I've tasted and made are the triple cooked ones done to Heston Blumenthals method. Quite time consuming with the chilling between cooks but the results are stunning.
Even a standard fried chip beats an oven chip though.

Because you are saying it's possible.

I'm not. I'm saying that it doesn't actually mean anything to say that something is "processed." Everything is processed. Pulling a carrot out of the ground is a process.