A few years ago, we (that’s my family) visited my brother and sister-in-law in Indonesia. They live in a beautiful place right next to the beach. No supermarkets on their doorstep; but they do have a fantastic fresh market nearby. Although they couldn’t buy bags of crisps (or chips as we used to call them in Australia); they could make them – and they were delicious. I have adapted the original recipe slightly – however this recipe comes with very grateful thanks to Aam and Robert (although to be fair, Robert’s contribution was mainly eating them).

I use a pasta roller to make these… you might be able to roll them by hand – I don’t know – but, if you do, please comment and let me and everyone else know how you got on.

I start by making a ginger and garlic paste. I know you can buy ginger and garlic paste in a jar – but it is much nicer if you make it yourself (and it is easy).
Peel about 3cm of ginger – use a spoon (if you have never peeled a piece of ginger with a spoon – please give it a go. It is one of the most satisfying prep jobs in the kitchen) and peel three cloves of garlic. Roughly chop these and combine with a teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of oil and a couple of tablespoons of water.

Blend these into a paste. This paste will keep in a jar in the fridge… but, I use all of it in these crisps.

Weigh out 500g of plain flour and add some salt. I use 5g of salt but you may want a little more; especially if you are used to commercial salty snacks (remember that you can always add more salt after they are cooked). I then add some spices (you can leave them plain or experiment with cumin, coriander, chilli etc.). Today I used Kashmiri Chilli powder.

The next part is optional. If you have some sourdough starter you can add a tablespoon or two. But if you haven’t got any don’t worry. I have made these both with and without starter… I think it makes the dough easier to handle (but that might be my imagination).

Mix together the ginger and garlic paste, the starter (if using) and just enough water to make a dough ball.

Add more water until the dough comes together. If it gets too sticky, turn it out onto the counter and work in more flour. Then return the ball to the bowl, cover and leave to rest for at least 30 mins.

You will find that this amount of dough is too much to handle in one go; so, split the dough into 8 smaller balls and dust with flour.

Start the roll-out by gently flattening one of the balls

And run this through your pasta machine.

Starting on the widest (mine is 6) and reduce down by one until you are down to the thinnest setting (mine is 1).

Dust the dough with flour to stop it sticking to the surface and sticking to your hands. Cut into small pieces – you can be creative here… we like both triangles and squares, but have experimented with parallelograms.

Looking closely, you will see that we have sprinkled semolina (coarsely milled flour) over the pieces. this helps them to not stick together and to keep them separated during the next stage.

Once you have rolled and cut all eight balls of dough it is time to deep-fry the crisps.

Once cooked, scoop them out and let them drain of some kitchen paper.

Yum