As promised, here is an updated recipe for those trying to replicate the now discontinued Paqui Ghost Pepper chips (note: this is not an effort to recreate the One Chip Challenge, though I could try my hand at that if people are interested).
Ingredients:
- 1.5 tsp Ghost pepper powder
- 1 tsp Chipotle powder
- 1/2 tsp Chile de Arbol powder (optional)
- 1 tsp Superfine salt, or more as needed1
- 1 tsp MSG2 (optional)
- 1/4 tsp powdered sugar, sifted (optional)
- Super fine sea salt is best here because you want everything to stick to the chip, and finer grains stick better than larger ones. You may find it referred to as "popcorn salt" or if needed, you can blend regular salt down to a fine powder in a clean coffee grinder. How much salt you add depends on the chips you're using as a base. If your chips are low sodium, I'd recommend doubling the salt content listed here
- I used my Habanero Umami seasoning here, but any brand of flavor enhancer like Accent or Ajinomoto will work. If you don't have any, add a bit of extra salt.
All the ingredients. I didn't sift the sugar in this one, which was a mistake.
Method:
The key here is to get the seasoning to stick to the chips. It's easier with potato chips since they maintain an oilier exterior. I found baking corn chips really helps, though it is not going to be as perfect as a chip that was seasoned right after frying (if you really want to go all out, frying your own is definitely the way to go).
- Mix ingredients really well (I shook them together in an air tight tupperware – be sure to let it settle before opening so you don't tear gas yourself)
- Bake chips at 300 degrees for 4 minutes. Keep an eye on them and pull early if needed, you don't want to see the chip darken because they will taste burnt
- Put chips in a sealable tupperware or bag, and add the seasoning, and shake. I used 1 tbsp seasoning for about 50 g of chips, but you can eye it and add more as needed.
That's it! Adjust to taste. I used much less sugar than my initial recipe called for because it came out overly sweet. You can omit the sugar altogether if you'd like, or replace any of the pepper powders with those you have on hand. Once you've started with a small batch, you can make modifications and scale it up. If you have any particular favorite modifications, let me know! I turned this into a blog post and will add any tips there as well.
Bonus content
While I was at this, I also had some preflavored chips I thought I'd experiment with. This is much easier because you don't need to worry about salt and the seasonings stick really well without baking the chips.
- 1 bag of Lay's Limon potato chips
- 1 tbsp Chile de Arbol powder
- 1 tsp 7 Pot Primo powder
Be sure to mix the two chile powders first for even heat distribution. Lays makes their own spicy version of the Limon flavor, but oh my god this version is so good and dramatically hotter.
The other one that worked really well was:
- 1 bag Frito's Chili Cheese
- 1 tbsp Peri Peri powder
- 1 tsp Smoked Ghost
This was good with just Peri Peri as well, but the smokiness of the Ghost complimented the flavor nicely. By this point my tolerance may have been totally shot, so you may want to start with a bit less chile powder.
Anyways, that's all for now, if anyone tries it I'm curious to see how it goes or if you have any tips on improving the process. There's never going to be a perfect way of replicating the original Paqui chips but I know a lot of people are missing them so I thought I'd try to get as close as I could.
by heathotsauce