Specials Board: Side Orders - Cheesey Kale Chips

I've been perfecting a recipe for Cheesey Kale chips for a little while now and I'm pleased to announce I think I've cracked it!

Thankfully my little garden has provided me with enough kale to perfect the recipe. But alas my crop has all been used up now, but don't fear now is the time to sow sow sow! You'll be pleased to hear that it wasn't all used to make kale chips though and I'll post another kale recipe soon..........

The path of perfecting the cheesey kale chips was up and down but there were a lot of giggles along the way. A couple of weeks back my sister and I had a cook up session in my kitchen, trying out different ingredients to get that cheesey taste just right. The only problem was when we made up a batch of the marinade/sauce we mostly ate it during our taste sessions! When we finally thought we had it just right we realised we hadn't written down the ratio of ingredients!

Anyway, to cut a long story short a few days ago I had a light bulb moment and in my opinion got the ratios just right, so without further ado here is what I did! Not everyone has the same taste opinion but the beauty of making your own, is that you can add more of one ingredient if you think it needs it.

You may need to double up the ingredients or even halve them depending on how much kale you have.



Ingredients

Bunch of kale, washed & dried thoroughly
4 Tbsp Water
1 Tbsp Olive oil
2 Tsp Lemon juice
3 Heaped Tbsp Nutritional Yeast
1 Tsp Garlic granules
1 Tsp Porcini powder
½ Tsp Vegetable bouillon powder
½ Tsp Mustard powder




Method
In a pestle and mortar pound the nutritional yeast to form a fine powder. 

Whisk the oil, lemon juice and water together to combine and add the nutritional yeast powder and the remaining ingredients bar the kale. Give everything another whisk up and have a quick taste test.

Now's the time to add more of any ingredient if you think it needs it, but remember the taste now will be lighter than the final version as we are dehydrating the kale.

Remove the larger stems from the kale, the smaller ones will be fine and chop the leaves into smaller pieces. Just a bit larger than you want your chips to be. 

Transfer to a large bowl and pour over the marinade/sauce and mix with your hands making sure all the leaves are evenly coated with the mixture. 

Transfer the leaves to a food dehydrator being careful not to overlap the leaves. Dehydrate at 70°C for 6 hours or until totally crispy. If you haven't got a dehydrator the kale chips can be made by baking in a very low oven overnight.