- We started by slicing watermelon to a thickness of about one millimeter using a meat slicer. Then we brushed on a slurry made of starch and water, vacuum sealed the slices, and let them rest for about 30 minutes.
- After the watermelon slices were given sufficient time to be impregnated with the starch, they were patted dry and deep-fried.
- The result was amazing: A light, crispy chip loaded with the concentrated flavor of watermelon. Apple, jalapeño, and dill pickle were some of the other successful results we achieved with this method.
Watermelon chips
John Barton
30th July 2011
Watermelon chips
The joy of breaking into a fresh bag of potato chips is universal. It’s hard to resist losing yourself to bite after bite of salty, crunchy fried starch. In most grocery stores, novel alternatives such as beet, yam, and cassava chips have become commonplace. But until now, the common denominator in all of these variations has been a high starch content.
As the starchy main ingredient is deep-fried, the gelatinization of the starch gives structure and crunch to the resulting chips. However, that same inherently high starch content produces a much less exciting side effect — namely, all of these chips tend to taste bland before seasoning. Sweet, tart, and naturally moist vegetation tends to burn, shrink, or fall apart when deep-fried naked. But what if you were able to impart the structural advantages of high starch content to plant foods that possess zippier flavor profiles? Can chips made from less starchy plants be stabilized enough to withstand the deep-frying process? If so, which plants yield the best results?
To see how far we could take this premise, we tested a variety of fruits and vegetables with typically high water contents. Ultimately, we found that watermelon produced the most striking results. The method we chose to impregnate the starch into the watermelon is the same technique used in many Modernist kitchens to impregnate or concentrate intense flavors: vacuum compression.
Ingredients
Method
What would you like to see made into a chip? Leave a comment
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