My husband just loooooves his junk food… and he harbors a very special addiction to a certain neon-cheese-powder-coated-tortilla chip. Salty, unnaturally orange and loaded with MSG, their siren call seduces him with every trip to the supermarket. Unpronounceable chemical ingredients aside, these babies also cost about $4.50 a bag – fairly expensive for one evening’s-worth of snack food, I’d say.
So I’ve been experimenting with making some addictive crunchy carb things of my own. Since I often cook Latin food, I am rarely without tortillas (corn tortillas, thank you very much), so why not make homemade chips?
I tried baking them – you know, so I could indulge too? Ugh. They were awful – hard, wooden, tasteless. So not worth the calories.
Then I had to fry some up in order to make chilaquiles the other night, and tried some… ooh, delicious! They didn’t even need salt, the toasted-corn-flavor was so good! I had to be vigiliant about swatting hands away from them in order to have enough for the intended dish.
The best thing was that they took less than 10 minutes to make! (I’d even say less than 5, except I wasn’t timing myself and wouldn’t want to mislead you.) And at $2 for about 100 tortillas, these aren’t going to break the bank any time soon. Even if Josh does ask me to make them every single night, as he has for the past week.
Pour about 1/8-1/4″ of canola or veggie oil into a pot or deep pan. The amount doesn’t matter as much as making sure that the bulb of the thermometer is touching the oil. Cut a stack of 10-15 tortillas into eighths or whatever – don’t make them too small because it’s hard to get them out quickly anyway. Use a pizza wheel or if you don’t want to dirty a cutting board, a pair of scissors. (10-15 tortillas will make one-two generous American-sized servings, maybe 2-3 Mexican-restaurant-bowl-of-chips’ worth.)

Keep a very damp (but not dripping) cloth towel right next to the pot. If you have a gas stove your oil might catch fire if it splashes. Turn off the flame, cover the flaming pot with the damp towel and the pot lid, and remove the pot from the heat.
Line a baking sheet with a couple layers of paper towels for the finished chips. Stick it in a 200* oven.
Heat your oil to between 340 and 360. Take it off the burner if it gets too hot, and lower the heat accordingly. Splash! In they go one by one (to avoid sticking). If you’re using a shallower pot, don’t be as enthusiastic as I was.

Turn them as soon as the edges get golden. Use metal tongs, not plastic.

Fish out the chips with a deep-fry spider and spread them on the baking sheet. Return the sheet to the oven to keep them warm until they’re all done.

Left to right: raw tortillas, chips done between 340-360*, chips done between 380-400*.

Sprinkle with kosher salt, garlic powder, cheese dust, and whatever else your heart desires. NOM.
