Last night was a little bit of a stove top disaster zone. I have been perpetually jet lagged since returning from San Francisco, and hence my thinking hasn’t been so clear. At the market after work I bought salsa, but no chips, and didn’t exactly plan out a dinner very well. And in my fuzzy headedness I thought it would be a great idea to make my own tortilla chips. We had a bag of corn tortillas in the refrigerator that no one was going to use, and I’ve never really done it before, so hey! Why not pick a time when I can barely think? Hoorah!
I created the most smokiest kitchen I’ve ever been in in my life.
This is not just bad lighting. That haziness is all smoke which just poured endlessly from the pot of hot oil I was attempting to cook tortillas in. And was it worth it? Not really.
My experience of frying, as I say, is limited. And I don’t have a cooking thermometer with which to measure the temperature of the hot oil, to ensure it’s always at the optimum frying up temperature. Needless to say, it was not always at the frying up temperature, and those tortillas cooked up and burned mighty fast after awhile. And produced copious amounts of thick smoke that refused to dissipate.
Now, everything I’ve read about making tortilla chips says, “Heat the oil, put the cut up tortillas into it, take them out when they’re browning and bubbling.” I did just that. They weren’t that great. Don’t get me wrong, they were totally edible. But they weren’t very crispy, except the ones that were slightly burned. They cooked much too fast. They, um, smoked up my kitchen.
The only thing I can think to do next time to create an even better snack sensation is to pay attention to the temperature of the oil. Does it matter what quality the tortillas are? Probably, but they pretty much all seem the same to me.
Oh, and probably having an exhaust vent installed would help a lot. How many times can I harp on this: Why do no houses in Boston have freaking vents over their stoves? I would not have to stand at the doorway frantically swinging it open and shut like a freak if we just had vents over our stoves.
Aside from my smoking problem, I tried to make a shrimp quesadilla for dinner and it ended up sticking to the skillet something crazy and turning into a soggy over-cheesed mess. Sigh. Hopefully tonight will be a better night in the kitchen. With less carcinogens.
