I had been wanting to try my hand at homemade vegetable crisps for a while now, but was waiting until I got my hands on a mandolin. That time never came so I settled for a cheese slicer, which made a pretty good alternative. I've tried store bought vegetable crisps plenty of times and loved them, but never thought that my homemade version would live up to them. Well, I was wrong. (Apart from the kale, not my cup of tea. At all.)
INGREDIENTS
yields one large bowl of crisps
1 large carrot
1 large parsnip
1 beetroot
bunch of kale leaves
olive oil
sea salt
chilli flakes
METHOD
1. Preheat the oven to 200C. Wash the kale and peel the carrot, parsnip and beetroot. Using a mandolin, sharp knife or peeler/cheese slicer, cut the carrot, parsnip and beetroot into paper thin slices. Keep them as big as possible, cutting the carrot and parsnip length-ways.
2. Dry off the slices of all vegetables as much as possible using kitchen paper. If they're damp at all they will take much longer to get crispy in the oven. Once all the moisture has been absorbed, coat the slices in the tiniest bit of olive oil. I'm talking 1/4 tsp per vegetable.
3. Lay the crisps out on an unlined baking tray and sprinkle with salt and chilli flakes to taste. Try to keep the crisps separated and they'll crisp up better.
4. Pop in the oven and give them all a shake every 5 minutes. I found that the cooking time really varied (anywhere from 8-30 minutes) depending on the thickness of the crisps and their moisture when going into the oven. Just keep checking them until they're perfect.
