While browsing through the
Top Chef Quickfire Cookbook, a gift from friends Kira and Evan, I came across a recipe for carrot chips. Looked like a pretty fun idea, so I decided to try it out. Why stop at carrots, though? Along with a huge bag of carrots, I picked up a sweet potato, some yucca, and a few beets. I also purchased corn starch, which the recipe called for, however that remained unopened and forgotten about at the end of the day. Oh well.
I sliced the veggies nice and thin using our mandolin and tossed them in some heated canola oil (the recipe calls for either canola or peanut oil). After each batch I would take out the chips and put them in some paper towels to soak up some of the oil.
While looking for taro (I love taro chips but was unable to find any at our local market) I was inspired by some of the various potatoes for sale. I grabbed a few different varieties and decided to make an egg and potato sandwich to go along with the vegetable chips. I've had this type of sandwich once before and it is starchy, carb-heavy goodness. I cut up the potatoes into small pieces and started browning them in a pan. After a few minutes I scrambled up some eggs and poured them in along with the red, white, and purple potatoes.
The sandwich was pretty tasty, although a few of the potatoes were larger than the rest and ended up being a little undercooked. A silly mistake, but a lesson learned. Regardless, the combination of the scrambled eggs and browned potatoes gave a warm, breakfast-y feel and the different colors of the potatoes was a neat visual treat. Most of the chips came out really well. The sweet potato chips were delicious (I'm a sucker for anything sweet potato), and the yucca chips were nice with a little salt and pepper. They ended up being extremely crunchy so if possible slicing them thinner might have been helpful (although I think I used the thinnest mandoline insert). The circular carrot chips were tough to cook and ended up burning really quickly. That may or may not have been the result of forgetting the cornstarch. I'll have to try that one again. Sliced length-ways, though, they ended up being really good. They had a nice sweetness to them, similar to the sweet potato chips. The beets, sadly, were the biggest flop. They just wouldn't cook right, and never ended up being crispy. If sliced too thin, they would wilt and crumble immediately. If sliced too thick, they would retain their shape but end up being mushy and not very chip-like. Oh well.
Definitely a fun meal and probably something we'll try again in the future. It was actually a nice change of pace to be able to walk around the market and form a dish with the ingredients present rather than coming up with a list before you even leave the house.
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