Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Food: Kale Chips...the Journey

I have been buying Kale now for a couple of weeks for Elora’s smoothies. The problem is, I purchase a bundle of Kale and before I use it all, the poor things are losing their color and going limp. I started cutting off the ends and putting them on the counter in a cup of water, which seemed to help a lot. However, my feline, fuzzy butt, ninja counter assassins would execute their kill orders on-site.
Then, I found some recipes for Kale chips! Some of the reviews described them as a great substitute for potato chips…Lays, not Ruffles.
Most of the recipes were the same. Kale chips, olive oil, salt, low temp oven.
This will be a work in process, I will share what I did for the first attempt.
·         Preheat oven to 300 degrees
·         Rinse Kale in water.
·         Use paper towels or dry kitchen towel to thoroughly dry the Kale.
·         Remove leaves from the tough stems (like you would to prepare swiss chard)
·         In a large bowl, mix 1 tbsp of olive oil and 1 tbsp of soy sauce
·         Gently mix in the large bowl until the Kale is evenly coated with the oil/soy sauce mixture
·         Arrange the coated Kale on a baking sheet in a single layer (you may have to do this in batches)
·         Sprinkle coarse salt over the Kale
·         Place baking sheets into oven for an intended 30 minutes (mine only took 10)
This is what I learned.
·         I would recommend the use of parchment paper. I had to use a frosting knife to scrape the Kale off the baking sheet.
·         Mine did not look anything like in the pictures of the recipes that I researched. The pictures show dark green, fluffy but crisp leaves. Mine were VERY flat…remember the frosting knife…and velum thin.
·         After putting them into a Tupperware container, they seemed to rehydrate a little. They must have been a little too warm to put in there, but they ended up being a little meatier that way.
·         I think next time I will try a lower temp and check them every 5 minutes to monitor the crispiness and see if I can’t catch them before they go flat…like someone stuck them into a memory book flat…so sad.
I will give an update when I attempt a second batch! The flavor was really good, nice and salty. Definitely crispy! If I can get them to be a touch meatier then I can totally see me using leftovers from Elora’s smoothie needs for snacking!

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. No! Didn't experience that at all! But I am sure it would have been a different story if I had a beer to wash it all down!

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