Crispy snacks are very popular. Chips are especially relevant among them, whose taste and aroma has many fans. The most useful of these are cornmeal chips, which you can make yourself at home. Their preparation does not take much time, and the result is very pleasing even to novice cooks.
What it is?
Corn chips are very popular in Mexico where they are called "nachos". This is a light snack that will help satisfy your hunger in a big company. It is made from corn flour or from corn tortillas with the addition of fragrant seasonings. Traditionally, it has the shape of a triangle, which is most convenient for eating snacks with sauce. Nachos are usually served with salsa or guacamole.
It is believed that corn chips were created in Mexico, in the small town of Piedras Negras. A man named Rodolfo de los Santos created it in the kitchen of his small restaurant Victory Club in 1943. The very name of this wonderful snack was given after, in 1949, in one of cookbooks where it was printed original recipe corn chips.
Currently, there are many variations of the traditional recipe that are popular with different countries. There are triangular and round chips, flavored with various seasonings and including additional ingredients to achieve a more crispy and dense texture.
One thing remains unchanged - nachos are quite hearty and dry, and therefore are still served in addition to some kind of sauce. Especially popular in Russia are cheese and sour cream sauces with herbs.
Compound
Corn chips, due to their composition, are considered more beneficial to the human body than the popular potato chips.
They have the following BJU per 100 g of product:
- 7 g protein;
- 25 g fat;
- 61 g of carbohydrates.
The calorie content of the product is quite high - 496 kcal. It cannot be unequivocally said that this product carries significant harm or benefit. This is a flour product, and it is not recommended to use it often, especially for overweight people. Nachos are most popular for serving with extended family and friends while watching sports or a small party as a light snack before serving main courses.
Recipes for chips and sauces
Nowadays, corn chips can be easily purchased ready-made or you can make your own. Store-bought nachos draw attention to themselves with bright packaging decorated with traditional Mexican flowers, however, their composition retains little of the traditional homemade recipe. That is why many housewives are happy to cook corn chips at home, besides, the recipes and the scheme for preparing nachos are very simple and do not require a lot of money and effort.
To make traditional corn chips you will need:
- 400 g cornmeal;
- 1 glass of hot water;
- 5 tablespoons olive oil;
- 1 teaspoon paprika;
- 0.3 teaspoon of cinnamon;
- half a teaspoon of ground pepper;
- half a teaspoon of salt.
The cooking algorithm includes the following steps.
- Mixing ingredients for tortillas. In a deep bowl, mix all the dry ingredients and mix thoroughly with a wooden spatula. Add olive oil. Continuing to stir, pour into the dish in small portions. hot water. The flour should swell a little, and the texture of the dough itself should take on elasticity.
- Rolling tortillas and shaping future nachos. Spread parchment on the table and sprinkle it with flour. Using a rolling pin, roll out the dough on the table with a thickness of less than 2 mm. Using a knife, cut the dough into strips and then into triangles.
- Preparing nachos. Lay out the finished triangles on parchment and send to a baking sheet in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for 10-15 minutes. After that, you need to remove the baking sheet and wait until the chips have completely cooled - their texture will become more crispy and dense.
Mexican nachos can be served topped with grated melted cheese or with sauce.
The recipe for the popular sour cream cheese sauce includes:
- 200 g of hard cheese;
- 2 tablespoons of sour cream;
- 50 g butter;
- 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper;
- salt and herbs to taste.
Its preparation will not take more than 15 minutes.
- Melt butter in a hot skillet and add grated cheese. Stir over low heat until the cheese starts to melt.
- Add sour cream and seasonings to the ingredients, continuing to stir. It is necessary to wait until the cheese is completely melted and all the ingredients turn into a homogeneous mass.
- Remove the pan from the heat and pour the sauce into a ceramic dish. Add greens.
Chips are one of the most loved dry snacks in almost every country in the world. The history of the product is about a hundred years old, but relatively recently this delicacy has gained such popularity that nutritionists have paid close attention to it. And the arguments about chips, their harm or benefit are very different.
What is actually in chips
Information about the dangers of crackers and chips flooded magazines and websites about healthy eating.
Snacks are accused of a variety of "crimes", the most common of which are:
- slagging of blood vessels with cholesterol;
- the presence of carcinogens;
- incredible calorie content;
- increased acidity in the stomach and duodenum.
In addition, very often one can come across statements that chips as a source of nutrition are completely useless, they do not contain vitamins and other needed by the body substances. But is it?
The fashion for fighting cholesterol is gradually disappearing, and now we already know that not all cholesterol is harmful to health. Cholesterol, as a derivative product of the fats we consume, is divided into groups, among which there are necessary, even irreplaceable fats, as well as toxins - the culprits of atherosclerosis and blockage of the arteries.
So, in chips there is neither useful nor bad cholesterol, whatever some sources write about. The content of this form of fat in crispy slices is 0.0%.
But the nutritional value of this product is off scale. The high calorie content, for example, of its potato variety, namely 547 kilocalories per 100 g, makes many people wonder if it is needed in the diet at all.
Naturally, you will be surprised to learn that fried slices of whole, natural potatoes still contain both vitamins and minerals, and in decent amounts: about a third of the daily value of vitamin C, as well as 10% of the daily intake of iron and 3% of calcium are unfairly ignored by nutritionists. So what's the use, or should I say, the nutritional value this delicacy is still there.
Another thing is if you have purchased a product prepared “according to a special recipe” from potato flour (practically from ordinary starch), fried in trans fats - nothing really useful for your body is stored in it.
Flavorings create a food drug
And many lovers of crunchy salty admit that this misfortune is even worse than seeds. Nothing surprising! After all, the sprinkling that is used in factories contains not only a strong mixture of seasonings that are loudly declared on the label (greens, onions, peppers, horseradish, etc.), but also explosive flavor enhancers, usually hidden in small print in the line “Ingredients ".
Why is the taste of chips so bad for kids and adults? The fact is that our taste buds, on which all this “bacon” and “salmon” falls, are in a state of overload, the brain receives powerful impulses of pleasure, and the stomach receives signals about the need to produce a large amount of gastric juice.
At the same time, not a good piece of smoked meat gets into the stomach, but miserable crumbs of dried vegetables. The body has something to strain from, and, as you know, stress stimulants for many people become addictive. Not harmful, of course, but harmful.
- discourages even a strong appetite, in children it can spoil the taste for normal food;
- provokes the release of digestive juices (idle, naturally);
- increases the viscosity of saliva;
- causes irritation of the oral mucosa and thirst;
- leads to the so-called bridity - the inability to more or less subtly distinguish between tastes.
Of course, we are talking about the immoderate eating of factory-made chips and crackers. Note that like homemade meals, these snacks lose their aggressiveness and become normal, tasty, and nutritious meals. Draw your own conclusions.
How about other species?
AT recent times the assortment of exotic snacks in supermarkets has been replenished with products such as Filipino or Vietnamese banana drying. We have dubbed them banana chips, but you can’t figure out the benefits or harm from them right away.
You must have seen dried (dried) bananas - brown sticky sweets the size of a finger. Or another "banana brother" - dried fruits, most often found in packs of muesli.
Chips from this fruit are made differently: thin slices are fried in oil, palm or coconut, and sprinkled powdered sugar or salt. In bars and restaurants you can find the same fried slices, but with honey as a sweetener - a feast for real gourmets!
Again, real banana chips contain many useful substances - the same vitamin C and A, potassium and iron. But with a calorie content of 500-520 units per 100 g, you probably shouldn’t get carried away with them. By the way, it is difficult to eat more than a hundred grams of this product in one sitting - it is very cloying and satisfying.
The advantage is that food industry I have not yet had time to stuff this deliciousness with harmful additives and the ubiquitous flavor enhancer, so if not for the figure, then for the stomach, you can be calm.
Another type of snack familiar from childhood is corn flakes. Strictly speaking, no one considers these cereals, salty or sweet, beloved by all of us, to be chips, but they have the same essence.
Interestingly, under the influence of the fashion for fusion cuisine (mixing national recipes and culinary techniques of different peoples on the same table), we now have the famous nachos in the West. They are made only from cornmeal and fried in olive oil. Spicy spices and salt emphasize the taste of this savory dish. So what is more in corn chips - good or bad?
And again, we run into portion size. The optimal amount is 50 g, and if such an amount seems offensive to you, remember that traditionally nachos are eaten with very tasty sauces - salsa, gaucamole or pesto. This already cannot be compared with seeds, but looks a lot like a full meal!
Calories in nachos are about 480 per 100 g, and the percentage of the daily dose of calcium and iron is quite good - 17.7 and 14, respectively. But there are no vitamins at all, like cholesterol, which cannot but rejoice.
Homemade Chips Recipes
The harm of chips, or rather their factory form, can be negated if you cook them yourself.
Potato
The whitest variety of potato you can find works best. Cut into thin slices, use a mandolin grater. Dry the slices on a napkin, spread on a metal grid and blanch in boiling vegetable oil for about 2 minutes.
Sprinkle the finished chips with Extra salt mixture, ground coriander, oregano, basil and thyme (0.5 teaspoon salt + 1 tablespoon each of the remaining seasonings).
On a mandolin grater, slice ripe but firm bananas obliquely. Melt a little honey (1-2 teaspoons) and a glass of refined vegetable oil in a deep frying pan or saucepan. If you get coconut, it will be wonderful.
Its combustion temperature is much higher than sunflower, so it is ideal for deep frying. The banana doesn't absorb much oil, so you won't need a mesh. Fry the slices, dry on a napkin and dry in the oven for 20 minutes.
Corn nachos
Mix cornmeal and wheat flour equally. For 200 g (1.5 cups) of the mixture, take 50 ml of ice water and 1 tablespoon of olive oil. Knead a stiff but elastic dough. Roll out the thinnest sheet directly onto a greased baking sheet.
Bake for about 3 minutes at 220-230°C. The sheet will easily crumble into appetizing slices of nachos. You can sprinkle them with extra salt and red pepper, or serve them in a bowl with your favorite hot sauce.
Double-check information about excessive harmfulness or usefulness of products, and eat with pleasure and benefit for your entire body!
Hello bakers! Do you like chips? I - no)))) Well, maybe only those that are simply with salt and corn-like nachos. But they are terrible, albeit delicious! Fried in oil, there are clearly problems with the composition - it is not very natural, high-calorie, like a cake, and generally not at all useful. Once I was again drawn to eat such nasty things, but instead of going to the store and buying it, I baked it at home. It turned out not at all disgusting, but a very tasty snack, we can say that it is healthy, because the chips were not deep-fried, did not contain preservatives, flavors and dyes and were made from freshly ground cornmeal. Corn, by the way, took the one for popcorn, very hard, so I had to grind it twice.
For 3-4 giant chips or smaller piles of chips:
100 gr. finely ground cornmeal or homemade whole grains, sifted;
250 gr. boiling water;
¼ tsp sea salt + a little for sprinkling;
2 tbsp corn oil;
Spices such as ground chili, paprika, etc. - optional;
Flax seeds or kilindzhi - optional.
The corn, as I said, had to be ground twice, the grain was so hard that it blocked the millstones, which never happened with ordinary corn.
So here's what I did:
Turned on the mill (I have Hawos Queen 1) to work “idle”, set the grinding lever to the “seven” and began to pour grain into the bunker a little bit. I poured a new batch only after the previous one was ground.
This is how the cereal turned out.
Then she switched the lever to “one” and ground the corn again, gradually pouring the cereal into the bunker, also a little bit.
Flour in its original form.
But I don’t use this one, when it comes to corn or chickpeas, I definitely sift it on fine sieve, because there are a lot of coarse particles and husks in such flour.
This is what is left in the sieve after sifting.
And that's what was sifted - flour.
Now the dough.
Pour flour into a bowl, add oil, salt and spices.
Mix everything properly.
Pour in boiling water and stir.
Put a little dough on parchment (in heaps or islands, as poetic as you like)) and spread with a thin layer, trying to get an even layer. Or make a huge chip for the entire parchment.
Sprinkle with seeds and sea salt, if desired. Bake in a well-heated stone oven at 200 degrees for about 5-7 minutes, until the dough begins to noticeably blush.
Ready chips break into pieces or eat whole, they are very tasty!
DESCRIPTION
Servings - 6
Cooking - 15 min.
Total time - 35 hours.
Calorie content - 497 kcal.
How to cook corn chips is a question that a real culinary specialist who loves traditional food has asked at least once. mexican cuisine. In Russia, not in every store you can buy corn chips, the recipes of which we have described in detail for you below.
Corn chips nachos
INGREDIENTS
- 30-40 ml. vegetable oil
- Salt 1 tsp
- 1 1/4 cups hot water
- Ground paprika - a pinch
- Hot red pepper - a pinch
COOKING
- In a bowl, mix paprika, salt, hot peppers and flour. Next, add hot water vegetable oil and knead the resulting dough. After the dough has cooled down a bit, you can knead it more thoroughly with your hands.
- Lay parchment paper or a silicone cutting board on the table. Dust the base with flour first to prevent the dough from sticking. Next, we take a piece of dough that can easily fit in your palm and roll it into a thin layer into a cake of 2-3 mm.
- First, cut the resulting cake into long strips, then cut the same strips into rhombuses. And we divide the diamonds in half, getting the traditional triangular shape for nacho corn chips.
- Together with parchment paper, transfer the nacho chips to a baking sheet. The oven must be heated to 180 ° C, then place the baking sheet in the preheated oven for 10-15 minutes. The time will depend on the thickness of the rolled cake. As a result, the chips should turn out dry, ruddy and crispy.
Corn tortilla chips
INGREDIENTS
- Tortillas 5 pcs.
- Pinch of ground red pepper
- Garlic 2 cloves
- Sour cream 2 tbsp
- A pinch of salt
- Grated cheese 50 g.
COOKING
- To make corn chips, take cornmeal tortillas, cut them into triangular slices.
- Mix 2 tbsp. low-fat sour cream, ground pepper, chopped garlic and salt.
- Brush the tortilla slices on both sides with the resulting sauce.
- Sprinkle the chips with grated cheese and spread on parchment paper, which we place in a baking sheet.
- We put to bake in a preheated oven to 180ºC for 5-6 minutes. The edges of the slices should brown and the grated cheese should melt.
- Let the chips cool down a bit to make them crispier.
Corn chips carambas
INGREDIENTS
- vegetable oil 30 ml.
- 2 cups cornmeal (350 g)
- 1 ¼ cups hot water
- salt - a pinch
- finely chopped bacon
- onion 1/3 heads
- garlic 2 cloves
- pinch of red pepper
- paprika pinch
COOKING
The recipe for carambas chips is practically the same as the recipe for nachos chips. You need to make tortillas from cornmeal, cut them into thin slices. From all the ingredients presented above, prepare the dressing: salt - a pinch, finely chopped bacon, onion 1/3 head, garlic 2 cloves, red pepper pinch, paprika pinch. The resulting mixture of spices will come in handy after our chips dry out a bit. Remove the almost ready chips from the oven, gently (so as not to break) grease each slice with the resulting mixture. And again put in the oven at a lower temperature of about 100-110 degrees until fully cooked. Wait for the chips to dry and brown before placing them on a tray or paper bag. Let them cool down a bit.
Today, there are fewer and fewer people who have never heard of this snack. The nachos recipe came to us from sunny Mexico and has already spread all over the world. These crispy pieces are a great alternative to chips, surpassing them by several times not only in terms of usefulness, but also in terms of taste.
Ingredients
The traditional recipe for nachos involves the use of cornmeal. It is permissible to replace a small part of it with wheat or rye. Other flour is unlikely to work. For example, even a small amount of buckwheat will kill the taste of the main ingredients and even overshadow the delicate aroma of sauces. And if you use oatmeal, the dough will spread and roll out badly. Mexicans fry nachos in corn oil, but it can be replaced with olive or refined sunflower oil. You can add spicy spices, dried herbs, spicy seasonings to the dough.
cornmeal nachos recipe
To prepare a portion of nachos for 4 people, you will need the following ingredients:
- flour (corn) - 0.4 kg;
- water - 1 glass;
- salt - 5 g;
- pepper (ground allspice) - 5 g.
From these ingredients, you need to knead the dough, cut it into 4 parts and roll it into layers, from which cut triangular nachos with a sharp knife. The recipe at home involves heat treatment by frying in boiling oil or baking in the oven.
Cooking features
Which way to choose, everyone decides for himself. Those who like a crispy crust would rather cook nachos in boiling oil. And gourmets who monitor the calorie content of their favorite delicacies prefer to simply dry them on a sheet of parchment in the oven.
The first method will require a fairly large amount of oil for the nachos to sink in. The process will take only a few seconds, so you should not move far from the pan or be distracted by other things. Toasted chips are usually placed on a sieve or paper towels to soak up excess fat. Then the fragrant triangles will remain crispy and not soaked in the remaining oil.
You can also make baked nachos. The recipe at home involves the use of cooking paper. She needs to line a baking sheet, grease with oil, and spread the chips on top. It is not worth it to heat the oven strongly, 160-170 o is enough. In this case, the door needs to be slightly opened. Baking time is about 6-7 minutes. After the chips are browned, it is recommended to remove them from the baking sheet along with the parchment and let them cool right on it.
The method of cooking in the microwave is not so common, but it also deserves attention. Corn triangles are laid out on a plate greased with a thin layer of oil and sent to the oven. It is worth choosing the mode with the maximum temperature. Three minutes is enough for complete cooking. This method is good because it contains a minimum of fat, does not require close supervision, and takes very little time. Cooked chips can be immediately laid on a common dish.
Serving to the table
Mexican nacho chips, which are spicy and savory in recipe, are served on a wide platter. The sauces themselves must also be on the table. Mexicans usually don't limit themselves to one type and cook several at once so that guests can choose.
Serving with topping is acceptable. Nachos are laid out in a container, sprinkled with grated parmesan, pieces of vegetables, sauces on top. Sometimes the whole dish is heated in the microwave to melt the cheese.
Sauces for nachos
Mexicans use a huge number of various additions for this dish. Salsa and all its variants make a wonderful dip for nacho chips. A very common recipe is based on melted cheese with the addition of a small amount of cream. Invented on the other side of the Earth - in the Caucasus - sauces also go well with Mexican traditional corn chips, so you can safely serve tkemali, adjika, satsebili to the table. Well-known sauces such as tartar and paprika are also suitable for this dish.
There is no way to cook a lot of unusual sauces? No problem! Mix sour cream and mayonnaise, finely chop a few multi-colored pieces of bell pepper, season with a spoonful of mustard, add spices and green onions. Delicious homemade nacho sauce is ready to serve.
Some go down the path of discreet minimalism and make a great condiment with olive oil, dried herbs and minced garlic.
There are also sweet sauces. Corn chips can be dipped in melted chocolate, caramel, jam, jam, and even in regular jam syrup or everyone's favorite condensed milk.
In short, this dish encourages experimentation. Want to pair nachos with any of your favorite sauces? Feel free to combine! Do you want to invent something completely new and unusual? Please!
Nachos as a basis for cooking other dishes
Some chefs see the similarity of this dish with Italian lasagna. Crispy triangles make an excellent base for casseroles.
And again traditional recipe nachos open wide scope for improvisation. To prepare a baked dish, you can use meat, fish, ham, seafood, vegetables ... It is best to bake such a mixture in deco with high sides. The bottom of the mold should be greased with oil, on top of which, alternating layers, put nachos, chopped vegetables, grated cheese, meat or fish stuffing. To make the dish fragrant, we will not regret fragrant spices and seasonings, because Mexicans love a rich taste with spicy notes so much. And of course, let's not forget about sauces - they can be added to the dish itself, and served additionally to the table in gravy boats. When all the layers are laid, generously sprinkle the food with grated cheese. You can add some fresh herbs.
It is quite acceptable to eat such delicacies with your hands, and it is not at all necessary to lay out individual portions. A large plate of nachos is great for a friendly company, and the joint absorption of this dish is so conducive to friendly communication.
