Dragon-Baiting Roasted Chili-Garlic Wonton Crisps

I spent most of last month under water in Thailand, thinking about what I’d do differently when back in Shanghai. Like Chinese New Year resolutions. I tend to have a lot of these big thinks when I’m in places where they can’t be implemented, then when I get back to where they could be implemented, I’ve either forgotten about my ideas or I’ve given up already.

My under water thoughts were mostly about my sanity, my health, my creativity. I had plans to write more, to start running again, to eat more veggies. I was going to drink more herbal tea and drink less alcohol. I was going to go without sugar for a month. I was going to experiment with making my own sauerkraut, my own sour dough starter for bread. Did I mention the running?

Yeah.

No.

So we got back about a week ago and I’ve barely left the flat. I bought a box of wine and have been living on cheddar and crackers for most of the week, lying in bed catching up on three weeks’ worth of internet reading. I haven’t seen the inside of my gym since, er, November?

As a Tiger, I seem to not be able to take the year of the Dragon seriously, giving it the middle paw-pad with great insolence, refusing to participate.

This really needs to stop.

What I’ve got here is hopefully a step in the right direction for me, easing me away from my Lawson’s green-flecked crackers toward something a bit more hands on, something with ingredients I can recognize.

Technically we have two things going on here, but one makes the other possible: roasted garlic oil (with chilies) and gorgeous little crackers that inexplicably taste just like crispy, thin, mouth-melty potato chips (the good kind) but which are made from spring roll wrappers and baked in the toaster oven.

This recipe is very China-friendly. I’ve now got a tea-jar full of fragrant roasted garlic and chilies steeping in oil in the fridge, which will be used in soups, on toast, on crackers, in salad dressings, in slingshots for fighting vampires and any number of other tasty and pleasing uses. The crisps are just the beginning.

Both recipes came from the same place, a lovely blog I stumbled upon the other day. The writer has an earthy energy that I relate to and, unlike half the other food bloggers out there, isn’t the sort to open up a tube of Pillsbury crescent dough and a bar of chocolate and call it a pain au chocolat (or rather, pain du chocolat as the gormless blog I shall not name put it). You wouldn’t believe how many people out there think that adding a can of soda to a box of cake mix is a recipe. IT ISN’T. Gah.

First of all, the roasted garlic oil.

I added three fire cracker chilies, chopped into rough thirds, because I like chili in everything. You don’t have to do it if you don’t want to. I do recommend it though.

Chili and Garlic Roasted in Olive Oil

• I used 5 heads of garlic because that’s how many we had in the mesh bag from the market
• Juice from 1 lime (but I added a second one because they were small and not very juicy)
• A few cups of oil (the recipe calls for extra virgin olive oil but I live in China so I used sunflower oil and it was fine)

Let me show you what I did.

As with dissent, you want to gently smash but not break the cloves. I used the side of my great big knife to press down on them, making the skins easy to pull off.

My god, that sounded cruel. Sorry, garlics.

You can see my big old heap of garlic, chilies and lime here. In a bowl, squeeze the lime onto the smashed garlic and chilies and mix it around so all the cloves are coated. Let it marinate for a while. I did about ten minutes. In the recipe I got this from, she said to drain the lime juice and to save it for later. My lime juice kind of disappeared. I think the garlics soaked it all up.

Pre heat the oven to around 160C (325F). My toaster oven dial is a bit vague (you have 150C and 180C but nothing in between) but I put it somewhere between 150 and 180, nearer to where I thought 160 might be, and it was fine.

Put the limed garlic and chilies into a baking dish, arranged so they’re just one layer deep. Pour oil over them until they are just covered. She called for a ceramic dish but all I had were my baking tins, one of which had just been used for a rather explosive carrot cake and so had caramelized sugar spots glued to the rim.

I’d like to say this adds to the mouthfeel/flavour palette.

Let the garlic roast for about 45 minutes in the oven.

Is that not gorgeous?

And the amazing thing is, because I used a standard Chinese tea jar, there’s a leaf-strainer insert at the top that lets you pour the flavoured oil out without letting the garlic flop out.

I added the juice of a second lime here, and added a bit more oil so that it reached the top of the jar. Because of the roasting of the garlic and the acid from the lime (and the fact that this will be kept in the fridge), apparently all those food safety issues about garlic infused oil don’t apply here.

I have a feeling this will be used up in a week or so anyway.

Now, the crisps.

For these you need something like wonton or spring roll wrappers. I got mine from the freezer section over at the Jiadeli supermarket on the corner.

I pulled off a few sheets and cut them into quarters.

I lightly greased my multi-purpose cookie sheet with some of the garlic oil and nudged the oven temperature up to about 170C from the garlic’s 160C.

Lightly brush the strips of spring roll/wonton wrapper with garlic oil and lay them on the lightly oiled sheet. I sprinkled a few granules of kosher salt over them before throwing them in the oven.

Bake for about 7-8 minutes.

These… these taste like chips. Like salty roasted garlic chips. I had had great culinary plans to make a batch of fresh herbed cheese  to spread on them but I’ve been eating them plain.

Thus, laowai of China, if you ever tire of your cucumber, blueberry, spicy fish soup, Sichuan hotpot and lemon tea flavoured Lays, try these. Seriously. Chili-garlic chips. They’re freaking amazing.

I’m starting the diet tomorrow. Really.