Shrimp Chips

Shrimp Chips Instructions:

Puree your shrimp (or prawns) in a food processor. A blender may work in a pinch, but you’ll probably need to add some liquid, which may affect your dough.

Add the tapioca flour to your food processor and mix until you get a thick, doughy mixture.

If your dough is too thick, add a bit of water and mix until you get a stiff dough. If it’s too thin, add more tapioca flour.

Mix in salt, msg, and any other seasonings you decide to use. Again, these are all optional. I personally prefer to use MSG directly instead of adding fish sauce or other high-umami seasonings, but you can use fish or oyster sauce to achieve a similar effect.

Take the dough out and knead it until it’s smooth.

Form the kneaded dough into about two sausage-like rolls.

Steam the dough for between 30 minutes and an hour. If you’re worried about them falling through your steamer (or you want easier cleanup), put a bit of foil between the dough and your steamer.

Remove the dough from the steamer and let it cool. Some traditional recipes have you wait for a full two hours before you proceed, but I’ve never found that to be necessary. A few minutes should be fine. The dough should be rubbery with a slightly pink center.

Slice the rolls into very thin chips; the thinner the better. You can use a food processor, a vegetable peeler, or just a sharp knife to do this.

Arrange the chips on a cookie sheet and dry them. Traditionally, this is done in the sun. The best way to do it these days is with a dehydrator or convection oven. If you have one of these tools, you’ll be able to dry your prawn chips out in a couple hours. If you don’t, you’ll have to use a big fan or a regular oven set to warm. Both of these methods take about 12 hours to fully dry the chips out. I’m a fan of the fan method (get it?) because I think it’s a lot safer — I just put my cookie sheet full of chips in front of a box fan and ignore it for about a day.

Your chips will now keep basically forever, but you’re not done making them yet. If you want to store them, simply place them in an airtight container for however long you want, up to several months. When you’re ready to eat them, proceed to the next step.

Frying Chips
Submerge in frying oil at 375 F. The chips should sink down, puff up, then float to the surface. Once they’ve puffed up, remove immediately and let cool on a wire rack.

Microwaving Chips
Arrange a small number of chips (about 4) on a microwaveable plate and zap until the chips have puffed up. Overcooking will happen quite fast and will change the flavor and color of your chips.

Microwaved prawn chips have a different flavor profile overall, so you may want to season your chips differently or even brush them with oil (or butter) before you nuke them.