Shrimp chips and taro chips

[hzrt8w]

Have you even eaten Chinese shrimp chips and taro chips? They are both my favorite snacks.

You can buy ready-to-eat shrimp chips in bags in the Asian grocery market. A lot of people don't know: that you can buy them in dry form (they look like plastic chips used in casinos, sold in boxes). When you are ready to eat them, deep fry the dry shrimp chips in oil. The chips will bubble up and expand to about twice the size. It cooks really fast (just a few seconds), so do be careful and not to over-fry them. It is really fun to see the shrimp chips curl up and grow right before your eyes. It is kinda like popping pop-corns, I suppose. You need to put in the chip one at a time and make sure no two chips stick together.

Shrimp chips are typically served as a garnishing on top of the Cantonese Fried Chicken. 炸子雞 zhá zi jī [Mandarin]. Kids especially like them because the chips stick to their tongues when they eat them. It's fun.

As for taro chips: I have seen them, though not often, available in bags in American supermarket. In Hawaii, they are more popular. Yet the taro chips sold in supermarket are fairly expensive. Something like $4.00 for a medium size bag. Taro chips are fairly to make yourself. Just buy some taros (in my neighborhood they cost only around $0.70/lb), skin them, clean them and pad dry. Then use a peeler to cut them in paper-thin size. You may either deep-fry them or bake them. Once cooked, sprinkle some salt on top.

[Yuki]

Kids especially like them because the chips stick to their tongues when they eat them.  It's fun.

Hehehe, that's what I do too.

[Dejah]

Kids especially like them because the chips stick to their tongues when they eat them.  It's fun.

Hehehe, that's what I do too.

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That's how I get kids to try them! Which ones do you prefer? The colourful ones, the white ones or the ones that are HUGE!

Haven't tried the taro chips. Got my taste buds roused now, hzrt.

Did your parents ever deep fry mung bean noodles at Lunar New Year? They puff up so fast too. Mom used to sprinkle sugar one these but they are a pain to eat...and to clean up after! I like to cover a serving dish with these then pour saucy food on top.

[Pan]

Shrimp toasts are traditional in Indonesia, where they're called krupuk, and in Malaysia, fish toasts called keropok are more common (krupuk and keropok are of course the same word with slightly different spellings and pronunciations). hzrt8w, did you notice where the dry shrimp toasts you fry come from? I believe the ones in the big Chinese supermarkets in Flushing (Queens) and Manhattan are in fact imported from Indonesia.

[Dejah]

Shrimp toasts are traditional in Indonesia, where they're called krupuk, and in Malaysia, fish toasts called keropok are more common (krupuk and keropok are of course the same word with slightly different spellings and pronunciations). hzrt8w, did you notice where the dry shrimp toasts you fry come from? I believe the ones in the big Chinese supermarkets in Flushing (Queens) and Manhattan are in fact imported from Indonesia.

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Pan,

Not sure if we are talking about the same item. Shrimp toast to me is fresh shrimp paste smeared on pieces of bread then deepfried.

The ones hzrt is talking about are hard dried shrimp flavoured disks made from shrimp and a starch. They are also called prawn crackers. My box is from Shanghai, but has these translations also:

KROEPEOK:............

BEIGNETS DE CREVETTES..........

I seem to remember a box I had from Indonesia. The crackers were about 4 inches by 2 inches. They were quite a size when deepfried.

[Gastro888]

I prefer the colored ones (hand over the green ones, buddy!) and I'll eat the white ones last. I hate it when you go to places and they have the shrimp chips already pre-fried and dump them on top of the Cantonese Fried Chicken instead of making them fresh.

Next time you order this dish, try taking a shrimp chip, placing a chicken skin on top of it and sprinkle it with the "wah yem" (the salt that comes with it). Oooh. Heaven!

[Pan]

We're talking about the same thing, Dejah. "Kroepoek" is simply the old Dutch-influenced spelling of the Indonesian word "krupuk." I'm not familiar with the shrimp toasts you describe.

[hzrt8w]

At first I had the same puzzle as Dejah. But it seems like Chinese shrimp chips are called shrimp toasts in Indonesia. In Hong Kong/China, shrimp toasts mean a piece of bread with some shrimp paste (not the cooking sauce, but ground fresh shrimp meat) deep-fried - like how Dejah described. Served as a snack.

I used to have a roommate in college who's from Indonesia. His lunch/dinner was typically a plate of steamed rice, some meat/vegetable stir-fries, some dry, minced pork and salted peanuts (with skins) sprinkled on top of the plate, and a big piece of shrimp chip/toast. The Indonesian shrimp chip/toast is much bigger than the Chinese ones -- about 7 to 8 inches in diameter. But of course he had to break up the chips to smaller size before eating... LOL

And yeah... he didn't use any utensil for eating.

I do like the mix of rice and peanuts and minced pork and shrimp chip/toast.

[Transparent]

I grew up eating the fry-shaped shrimp chips, but I find that the big chips taste so much better. I've never tried a taro chip before; they never seem to sold anywhere. Maybe I'm not looking hard enough? I absolutely love taro though (boil them plain and I'll eat them), so I'm dying to try some.

[Pan]

Look in big Chinese supermarkets. I know the huge one on Kissena Blvd. in Flushing sells them. I'll bet you could find them somewhere in the Chinese neighborhood(s) in Brooklyn.

[hzrt8w]

I agree that taro chips are much harder to find. Even Asian supermarkets may not carry them. Perhaps it's a regional thing. The last couple of times we were in Hawaii, taro chips were everywhere. But of course taro is more like a staple in Hawaii. The last time I saw some taro chips in the Mainland USA was in a health-food store.

I have an update on making your own taro chips. Yesterday I tried to bake them but the result was not very good. Deep-frying seems to be a better way to make them at home. (not sure if the ones they sell at health-food stores are deep-fried). Also, use a mandolin to slice the taro is much better than using a peeler in getting a paper-thin, perfectly round-shape taro chip.

[jo-mel]

The box I have is "Rocket Brand" -- made in Hong Kong.

Number one son, when he was in his dating yers, was trying to impress a date with his home-made Chinese dinner. He had his woks out and was cooking away. One wok had the oil ready to puff up some mung bean noodles. He asked his date to put the noodles in the oil, but to be careful with them and not let them puff up. Well, of course as soon as they hit the oil --- up they puffed, and the poor girl jumped back and said "I can't stop them!!!!!"

Rotten kid, that son!!

[hzrt8w]

Speaking of chips for snacks...

Some like to fry wonton skins. If you have a batch of wonton skins that you don't want to waste, just deep fry them and have them as snacks. Some cut of these wonton skin sheets into small strips before deep-frying.

Also, one can use the dry thick egg noodles, cut them up in something like 3 inch in length and deep-fry them for snacks.

[Dejah]

Whenever I make sui mai, I use a cookie cutter to make my wonton skins round. The trimmings, I put into a baggie and freeze. When I need some crispy stuff to dress any of my dishes, I deep fry the trimmings and voila!

The first time I saw deep fried wonton "strings" was at Planet Hollywood. They topped one of our pasta dishes with these thin crispy strands which the server told us was made of wonton skin. So I decided to try this with some of the dishes in my restaurant. The customers like them!

These would be great sprinkled with cajun seasoning or anything that you'd use on popcorn.