The Rising: 2015

Back to the future

I am back, after years, 3 years, I got married in 2011 and then lost it basically. I got so busy being married that I forgot everything about me, pretty little thing that constituted my being. Between 2012 and 2015 there are a lot of good and bad things which have happened to me. It started with the diagnosis of an spinal illness which has no cure and needs surgery eventually for correction. Hence I am basically waiting for things to happen to me. We moved from Bangalore to Delhi in Nov 2013. I am still married and a matter of fact we have multiplied.

Aryan and I on the way to Lansdowne, India.

He is 9 months old, Aryan. The center of my universe was tough to manage initially, however after a lot of hard work and uncertainties I have been able to create a working model where I can retain my job and yet watch Aryan grow up every day and yes restart my madness with double enthusiasm. I need to catch up on 3 years. We live in Gurgaon and its our first summer here.


I have never seen such harsh summer, day temperatures moving up to 47 degree c and nigh temp staying as high as 33 degree c. One day I noted that it took 60 minutes for wet laundry to get dried up in the cloths rack. That gave me a bunch of crazy ideas. I have always been obsessed with the idea of preserving seasonal produce. Most people would think I have come from the stone age. Sometimes I get disappointed that we practically get everything in the super market these days. Then I started researching on buying a dehydrator and realized by the time the dehydrator comes home summer will be gone. Hence I could utilize this extreme climate to dehydrate some goodies.  The first thing that came into my mind was Peach as its abundant in this season. However I needed a pilot and that was potato.

I did not have any time to prep or planning, I straight away jumped onto the job. First I created the contraption for drying. I needed the following

My sons cloth drying rack
An unused dhoti
Some cloths drying clips
And lots of sunshine and wind.

Make sure the base surface does not blow away in the wind and is tightly secured by the clips. The reason I choose dhoti is because the chips wont stick to it. Earlier I had a bad experience where the cloth used was thick and the dammed Papadam never came off.

Then I washed some large sized potato thoroughly and kept its skin on. I used the regular kitchen grater which had a slicer attachment and sliced away 3 large potato.

Then I dipped the potato slices in cold water to wash away the starch. I did look up a lot of recipes on the internet with that in mind I followed my instinct. After draining the slices I dropped them to a pot of boiling water and added some salt to the water. The thing is, you need to wait for the potato to turn translucent or glossy. Once they are glossy take them out of water,typically after 3 mins in boiling water. Once drained I lined them up on my contraption. As a second thought I sprinkled some dry roasted chilly flakes on the potato, covered them with another layer of dhoti and waited. My estimate was it should be done in 7 hours under the sun instead of 2 to 3 days mentioned typically. Cant wait to show the end results, hence started the blog post in the meanwhile.

Once they dry out, put them in a airtight container and you need munch on some deep fry them and enjoy it. This should stay for about 6 month if stored in a airtight container.

All right they are done. It dried up in 7 hours of Delhi heat and it was not very difficult to peel them off the cloth. They looked super thin. Here's what I learnt, if you have made superfine chips there is no point frying them because they will burn, just spray them with cooking spray, sprinkle some chilly flakes and kosher salt on them and bake for 5 minutes at 190 c and you have crispy chips.

Here is how the final product looks like, not bad for starters. Eagerly waiting to press the button Post and kick off the next phase of my life.