Fresh chips for Belgian chip shops

In Belgium the chip shop, the frituur, is an institution, and every owner has a firm opinion about the perfect chip. Anyone who fries fresh chips from freshly cut potatoes knows that it all starts with the right potato. Friet van Beus is a Dutch farming family from Zeewolde that grows its own potatoes and cuts fresh chips from them, free of additives and never pre-fried. On this page you can read why our Agria suits the Belgian chip tradition, how it differs from Bintje and how to fry chips twice.

Why Dutch Agria for Belgian-style chips

A good Belgian chip has a crisp outside and a soft, floury inside, and is often cut a little thicker than in the Netherlands. For that you need a potato with plenty of dry matter and little sugar. More dry matter means less water to evaporate in the fryer, so the chips absorb less fat and stay crisp for longer. Low sugar levels give a lovely, even golden colour.

The Agria fits that bill well. It is a large, elongated variety with deep yellow flesh, so you can cut long chips that already have a warm colour before they go into the fat. We grow our Agria in the Flevoland polder and use only this variety for our fresh chips from September to July. Only in August, the transition season, do we switch to the Frieslander.

Because we only process our own chipping potatoes, there is hardly any difference in quality throughout the year. For a chip shop that depends on consistent chips, that may well be the most important argument. If you would like to know more about the origins and character of Belgian chips, you will find a separate article in our knowledge base.

Bintje or Agria: what is the difference?

For many chip shop owners, Bintje is the chipping potato. The variety was bred in Friesland in the early twentieth century and became the classic chip potato in Belgium. Bintje potatoes are floury, have pale yellow flesh and give a chip with a full potato flavour. For almost every Fleming, Bintje brings to mind a cone of chips from the local chip stand.

Bintje also has its drawbacks. The variety is susceptible to diseases such as late blight, which makes it harder to grow and means quality can vary from batch to batch. Storage needs care too. If kept too cold, any potato converts some of its starch into sugars, and in the fryer those sugars make chips darken too quickly. So how a batch has been stored shows up, quite literally, in the chip tray.

Agria is a younger variety with many of the same good qualities: floury, well suited to chips and frying to a golden colour. The difference lies mainly in shape and reliability. Agria potatoes are larger and more elongated, so you get more long chips from each potato, and they keep well in storage. To compare the varieties side by side, also read our article on Bintje potatoes.

Frying chips twice

Proper Belgian chips are fried twice, and for good reason. The first fry, known as blanching, cooks the chip through without colouring it. The second fry, the finishing fry, gives the chip its crisp, golden crust. If you try to do it in one go, you end up with chips that are brown outside while the centre is still undercooked.

For fresh chips around 12 mm thick, this is a good guideline. First fry them at 140 to 150 degrees Celsius for about six minutes, until they are cooked through but still pale. Then let them steam off and cool properly, for at least half an hour. Just before serving, finish them at about 170 to 175 degrees for two to three minutes, until golden and crisp. Exact times depend on the thickness, your fryer and how much you fry at once.

When finishing, bear the European acrylamide rules in mind. They advise frying no hotter than 175 degrees and aiming for a golden colour, not brown. The fat matters a great deal too. Many Belgian chip shops swear by beef dripping, blanc de boeuf, for its distinctive flavour, while others choose vegetable fat. Our article on the best frying fat sets out the options, and in frying chips twice you can read more about the technique.

With fresh chips there are a few things to watch that matter less with frozen ones. Drain the chips well before they go into the fat, because water in hot oil spits and cools the fat down. Do not fry too much at once, so the temperature does not drop too far. And change your fat in good time, because old fat gives a dark colour and an off flavour, however good the potato is.

Frequently asked questions