plantain chips

Do you remember the beet chips from last week? Ever since that post, I've been cracking under the pressure a little bit. I've been feeling pretty good about how things have been going around here. After that valley, however, both in terms of content and photographic craftsmanship, I was humiliated. I worried that I would never recover as an artist.

To prove to myself that I'm not yet completely over the hill, I've decided to step back into the ring with one more chip recipe in an attempt to reclaim my place in the sun. Plantains are another type of fruit I didn't know were real until very recently. They look like bananas, but on the inside, they're so much more. I'm a total sucker for any type of sweet/savory combo, and there things just knock it right out of the park.

one plantain

salt

canola oil

I have serious issues. When I fail, I need to understand why, so I can avoid similar mistakes in the future. The following is a true account of one blogger's quest for redemption.

Aesthetically, I really liked the idea of chips cut lengthwise. This would add an air of classiness that slicing the thing into little discs simply wouldn't compare to. I greased down one of my nasty pans and got to work laying out the soldiers.

I'm pretty sure my big mistake with the beet was marinating the slices in the salt before baking them, so aside from a scant brush of oil and a light sprinkling of salt at the end I decided to send these guys in commando. I let the beet down. I was not about to do the same to the plantain.

I won't lie, I fucked a lot of these up while cutting them, so the final tray was embarrassingly bare, which was not helped by the fact that I was doing this on an empty stomach. I stuck the ones that actually made it this far into the oven at 300° for twenty-four minutes, flipping them all halfway through.

I know they look burnt, and they are. But even the worst of them were so good I couldn't stop eating them. Plantains are god's gift to man, they taste incredible no matter what you do to them. I can't explain it. I just keep coming back for more.

So, there are the chips. Do I feel my dignity being restored? Not really. But I do sort of want to try this with every type of sliceable produce I know of. If I were a real food blogger, I would call this a "vegan life hack."

I feel like these were a bad example to choose in terms of the acquisition of glory because I probably could have eaten the whole thing raw and still enjoyed the meal just as much. These are one of my new go-to weekly staples. Plantains are fifty goddamn cents apiece at the dollar store, which means I now buy them like I used to buy kale. These chips are powerful enough to curb even the most ferocious snack attack, and I definitely recommend keeping a jar of them on you at all times for just such an occasion. I promise they won't let you down.