Allergen-Free Tortilla Chips

Left: chips made from corn tortillas
Right: chips made from brown rice tortillas

     Strangely, chips, the archetypal “junk food,” often contain surprisingly few ingredients. To avoid allergens you mostly need to check on what kind of oil they were fried in. Freshly cooked chips taste a lot better than chips that have been sitting in bags on grocery store shelves for a while and are very easy to make. If you are allergic to wheat, use corn or rice tortillas; if you are allergic to corn, use wheat  or rice tortillas.  Food for Life brown rice tortillas contain xanthan gum (from corn?) but no wheat, corn or yeast and make good, crisp chips. Note that some wheat tortillas contain yeast; if you are allergic to yeast, look for a brand that doesn’t have it or use rice tortillas. Remember that traces of corn or wheat can lurk in fry oil and be picked up by a following batch of tortilla chips: if you need to make more than one kind of tortilla chip, pay attention to the order in which you cook them or use two separate batches of oil.  

     tortillas

     oil (See Oil in the Glossary)

     popcorn salt (See Salt, popcorn in the Glossary)

     Cut some tortillas into strips or whatever shape you like. Prepare a plate covered with paper towels.  Tortilla chips cook rather quickly, so you need to have everything ready (and other people out of the kitchen) before you start. Put one tortilla strip into a pot containing enough oil that you can immerse chips in it and have plenty of room for hot oil to bubble up without escaping from the pot. Turn it on to medium high heat. When that chip is cooked, dredge it out: your oil is now hot enough.  Put enough chips in to fill the pot with one layer of chips. When they start to turn golden, quickly turn them over and allow them to cook briefly on the other side.  Using a slotted spoon, take the chips out of the oil and spread them out on the plate covered with paper towels to drain.  Go on to the next batch. Salt with popcorn salt.

Note: Depending on what you're allergic to, you can also make excellent, crisp chips from Siete brand almond tortillas (Ingredients: almond flour, tapioca flour, water, salt, xanthan gum, apple cider vinegar, fermented extract [oregano, flaxseed, plum]).

Chips made from Siete
almond flour tortillas