Potato Chip Soup and Ice Cream

The usefulness of ingredients is important. The ability to use them is up to the cook. One of our talents is being able to think outside the box when it comes to ingredients and find new uses for established items. Potato flakes and non-fat milk powder are staples in our kitchen. In Ideas in Food: Great Recipes and Why They Work we made potato chip noodles. In Maximum Flavor, we have fined tuned BBQ potato chip gnocchi. Both recipes use potato flakes. These dehydrated potatoes replicate the flavor of potato chips. Think about it, potato chips are deep fried to remove interior moisture and make them crunchy and to caramelize the outside. Potato flakes are halfway there. There seems to be a fear of using potato flakes in the kitchen. This stems from the idea of cheating in the kitchen. Oddly it does not seem to apply to non-fat milk powder in spite of the horror stories about it. As a kid a friend of mine drank only reconstituted dried milk, which to my mind was the stuff of nightmares. It tended to separate in the glass and had a gritty, chalky consistency. Thankfully I was able to get past the memories and discover usefulness in the ingredient. And to be frank, great mashed potato flakes (the ones that are 100% potato) make great mashed potatoes, in an instant. These two recipes utilize potato flakes and non-fat milk powder. They allow the idea of a potato chip with the clarity of the potato flavor to come through. Take them for a spin and then make them your own.