The Crossini French Fry Baking Pan Really Works

I prefer baked potatoes, but every once in awhile, my family wants chips.  Because deep fried foods are a hard limit in my kitchen, we thought of a compromise.  I picked up a Crossini.

It's a special baking pan that crisps frozen chips in the oven with no added oil.  I had my doubts, but I tried it and it really works to make nice crispy chips (French fries) from the oven.

I found that it also works very well for making pita crisps, toasting bagels, and making pita bread pizzas.

It is very easy. Just preheat your oven to 200 degrees Celsius, pour the chips onto the pan, and spread them out in a single layer. Bake for about 20 minutes, and then pour them onto a plate.

I wouldn't salt them until after they're baked because salt tends to draw water, and they might not come out crispy enough.

Because frozen chips are par-fried, usually in some kind of super heated and/or hydrogenated vegetable oil, they're not really suitable for a natural diet. So I treat these like an occasional indulgence for special meals when, for my husband, nothing else will do.

If you have more room in your freezer than I do, you can pre fry your own chips with fresh potatoes, and then freeze them. Then you can crisp them later with the Crossini.

A word of advice though.  If you use the crossini often, you may want to put one of the full-cover pans in the bottom of your oven.  Sometimes a little oil and potato juice leaks through the holes and this does accumulate and basically turn your oven into a smoker in the bad way.

Also, if you want to rehead a frozen chicken patty or something along with your chips, you can.  Just put a square of aluminum foil under the patty to keep the juices from dripping through.