Chip butty for the soul

I was supposed to be in Cambridge this weekend eating, drinking and being very merry but neither D nor I are feeling too fabulous so I will stay tucked up at home with a alpaca hot water bottle and a mug of hot lemon to nurture this bug. And not intending to be around this weekend I didn’t have a full fridge to conjure meals from actually it was rather bereft. As a few tureens of soup have been sloshing around this my dining table this week I want something different today. Assembling the paltry items from my Mother Hubbard’s cupboard I discover that I have some remaining potatoes left in the bag from the potato soup ministrations and a couple of part-baked baguettes and frankly not much else. But that’s fine because the perfect restorative comfort food for an under-the-weather Northerner has to be a chip butty – really a dish that covers all the major food groups for a sickly Atkins-phobic diner.

I can’t face cooking my chips in a deep-fat fryer as the public information films of my childhood extolling the dangers of a chip pan have had a resounding effect and even if I don’t set fire to the kitchen (I am led to believe that the modern deep fat fryer has virtually eliminated that possibility) I really don’t know what to do with all that old fat. I guess if I found a local bio-fuel consumer perhaps it wouldn’t seem so wasteful. Also I find myself drawn to the new deep fat fryers I see in the Lakeland catalogue that seem to only use a soupçon of the dreaded oil but as intriguing as that seems if they were that good why wouldn’t everyone use one like that? So basically no deep fat frying for me, instead I cut some fat chips from my potato, dribble with the merest amount of sunflower oil and bake in the oven, the part-baked baguette joins the chips for the final 8 minutes and then I just need the finishing touches. The crispy chips are doused in malt vinegar and sprinkled with sea salt and stuffed into the split and liberally buttered still warm baguette. Mmmm, I’m feeling better already!