you can't get what you want

[calimac]

Consider the humble tortilla chip. Supermarkets are awash in tortilla chips. One market located in a former bowling alley near my home has an aisle of tortilla chips, potato chips, and pretzels that's so long it contains more shelf space than many whole markets.

You can buy tortilla chips in many exotic flavors, up to and including habanero (which I tried once, and once was enough). You can buy white corn, yellow corn, or blue corn tortilla chips. You can buy multigrain tortilla chips. You can buy organic tortilla chips. You can buy flour tortilla chips. You can buy thin tortilla chips or crispy tortilla chips. You can buy round tortilla chips, strip tortilla chips, or triangular tortilla chips. You can buy scoop-shaped tortilla chips or mini tortilla chips. You can buy low-fat tortilla chips. You can even buy kosher tortilla chips.

The one thing you can no longer buy, at least in my neighborhood, is unsalted tortilla chips. One of the local markets used to carry them, but now none of them do, even the one with the giant aisle. Fortunately I did find a brand with only 45 mg/oz of sodium, about a third of the average, but still ...

Comments

[wild-irises.livejournal.com]

If you can find unsalted tortillas, tortilla chips are super-easy to make.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

I don't consider anything involving deep frying to be easy to make. I suppose one could bake them, but I don't like the taste so much.

[k6rfm.livejournal.com]

Don't have to deep fry to make tortilla chips, all you need is a eighth of an inch or so of oil. I use a small skillet and only do 4 or 5 pieces (1/8th of a tortilla) at a time. It still spatters a bit, and draining is annoying as with any fried thing. (Tongs are necessary to hold the finished chip over the pan for initial dripping; but trying to speed this up by shaking off the excess is a bad idea.)

Trader Joe's pretty reliably has unsalted chips, but I don't know if there's one by you. Note as with almost everything at TJ's it's only "pretty reliably" so making a special trip is a losing proposition.

We actually made tortillas the other day; hadn't tried in years since previous attempts were so much trouble. What we did this time was make the dough very dry -- adding water literally drop by drop until the dough would just hang together; made very small tortillas, only about 3 inches across; and used leftover plastic bags above and below when "rolling" the tortillas out (really just pressing with the flat bottom of a pan.) Only problem is two people can eat them as fast as they are made.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

It still spatters a bit, and draining is annoying as with any fried thing.

Yeah, that's the problem with deep, or even not so deep, frying. But thanks to you and Deb for the advice.