Sweet, salty and Kickstarted snacks
Vincent Kitirattragarn’s mother knows Bangkok-style street food. So when Kitirattragarn decided to abandon a corporate San Francisco gig to pursue cooking, he knew who to call first. It was while munching on toasted coconut—a key ingredient in her recipe for Thai lettuce wraps—that he hatched the concept for Dang…
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Eco-friendly snacks made with parsnips and Manuka honey
In 2009, Cara Leighton approached a couple of her restaurant-savvy friends to help create parsnip crisps with Manuka honey—a bold, flavorful syrup produced from New Zealand’s Manuka trees. While Leighton started out doing prep-work and cooking in her own home, the crew have since moved the company, Leighton Brown,…
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Tastier than you might think
With archeological evidence tracing their roots back as far as 13,000 years ago in India and Pakistan, lentils have been a protein-packed part of mankind’s diet since the Neolithic times. Like various other healthy chips we keep on tap, Simply 7’s Lentil Chips make the legume accessible to those less familiar with its many nutritional benefits. The crispy, gluten-free snack gets its flavor from just the right amount of garlic and spices, but with 40% less fat than potato chips makes a significantly healthier option.
We tried all three flavors—sea salt, bruschetta and creamy dill—at CH HQ, and found each of them well seasoned and satisfyingly crunchy. As a bonus, the trans fat-free chips are a good source of protein and iron. Head to Simply 7 online for recipes and more information, including where to buy.
A slice of spice from Vermont with bold South-of-the-Border flavor
A small Vermont-based operation with outsized creativity, Deano’s Jalapeño Chips are flavorful little slices of actual peppers—perfect for spicing up burgers, eggs, snack mixes, popcorn or even as a stand-alone snack. Founder Doehne “Deano” Duckworth, inspired by Jalapeño-flavored potato chips, decided to skip the potato altogether.
Sliced paper thin, the peppers fry to a crisp before a dusting with either cheddar or ranch flavoring. Though it might sound as heart attack-inducing as their starchy cousins, Deano’s are free of trans fats, cholesterol, gluten and even hydrogenated as well as partially-hydrogenated oils.
You’ll find store listings and a few recipes for those of us with less-inspired culinary talents on their site.
Chuao packs their new chocolate bar with crispy potato chip bits
Combining milk chocolate with all-natural, kettle-cooked potato chips, Chuao Chocolatier‘s latest highbrow-meets-lowbrow goodie is the slightly crunchy Potato Chips in Chocolate bar. This latest concoction is an easy way to get that sweet-and-savory fix without immersing yourself in a messy cooking project.
Handmade in San Diego, CA, the bars are made by first crushing the lightly-salted chips by hand into bite-sized pieces. The chips are then mixed into Chuao’s custom blend of 41% milk chocolate (from Venezuelan and other Latin American beans) and then hand-scooped into molds.
While the texture resembles other wafer-filled crispy chocolate bars, the potato chips provide a surprising punch of salty flavor and crunch that crispy rice can’t deliver. Though we tend to veer for the darker end of the chocolate spectrum, we like Chuao’s not-too-rich milky blend.
Potato Chips in Chocolate is currently available at Chuao Cafés and on the Chuao website, three for $18 or 12 for $65. You’ll start seeing it at some chains, including Whole Foods and Ralph’s, in fall 2011.
Also on Cool Hunting: Chuao Chocopods
Pickle masters meet potato chip vets for a briny snack sensation
Anyone familiar with McClure’s pickles or our favorite Bloody Mary mix will like where the two brothers’ fascination with pickles has led them now. Drawing on the flavors of the tasty brines that started it all, the latest to get the McClure treatment are bags of crunchy potato chips.
Detroit’s veteran snack food company, Better Made, provided the perfect chips as a base and McClure adds their blend of spices that pack the potatoes with their distinct punch of pickle flavor. Sprinkled with the right amount of mouth-watering seasonings the chips trick your tongue into tasting zesty pickles before dissolving into the savory potato taste.
It’s not just the flavors that reflect McClure’s specialty product, but the crinkle cut also evokes the playfully familiar form pickles often take. The chips are certified vegetarian, vegan and Kosher and are trans fat-free. Each bag features McClure’s standard bold graphic and is color coded according to flavor—red for spicy pickle and green for garlic dill pickle.
Look out for McClure’s potato chips in mid-July 2011 locally in New York City and Detroit. Ohio and other pickle-friendly locations will follow, and will be available in online shop in August 2011. Prices are around $1 in Michigan and $1.75 elsewhere for a 2.5 oz bag.
All photos by Cool Hunting
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