Friday, January 26, 2018

Crispy Garlic Chips

This is a kinda weird garnish I like to make. Found it on a bowl of ramen in Hawaii once. I just remember being kinda amazed and wondering how they did it. I kinda assumed it was something you would buy. But then I got to talking to a buddy who was a sous chef at at a huge restaurant with a wide breadth of influence, so they kinda had a lot of room to experiment with stuff. Meaning that, if you find yourself wondering how to do some weird, random thing, chances are he's made it. Sure enough, they had put these on a crudo or something at one point. He explained that the trick is the milk soak. I also later found a Thomas Keller recipe for these. A little bit of an adventure. Deep frying is always a hassle, but this is a fun project, and I love these little crispy garlic flakes. Awesome topping for ramen.

Ingredients

  • 6 cloves garlic
  • 2 cups milk or almond milk
  • fryer oil

Directions

  1. Peel and slice the garlic. You want it really thin and even. I have a little fine microplane that works great. It's actually a cucumber slicer, like, for spa treatments. Works great for thin veg slices though.

  2. Place your garlic slices in a small pan and cover with milk. Bring just to a boil, then strain. You have to repeat this goofy task 4 times, at least, with fresh milk each time. It seems kinda weird, but the hot milk removes the bitterness from the garlic. I've done a lot of experimenting here. Even if you only steep the garlic 3 times, it will still come out bitter. You gotta do 4 steeps. Not a single steep fewer. Four is the magic number. Five is just ridiculous. Rinse the slices in hot water when you're done.

  3. Heat your fryer oil to 300F and gently drop in your garlic slices. I like to use chop sticks to separate the slices and move them around as they cook. Remove the garlic chips when they're just beginning to turn brown. They'll continue cooking a little after you remove them from the oil, so don't let them go too far or they taste gross.



bon appetit

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