Mustard Pretzels

Pretzels, large or small, soft or crunchy, were meant to be dipped in mustard. In a never-ending quest to make life more efficient and more delicious, I decided to make a pretzel from mustard.

If you’re a regular reader of Garrett’s Table, you know that I’ve been recently obsessed with puffed tapioca chips, as seen in puffed tomato chips with basil pesto. Puffed tapioca chips don’t sound very delicious but I assure you they are. They’re made by steaming a flavored tapioca starch dough. The cooked dough is then dehydrated. Once dry, you fry the chips at 400° F. The residual moisture in the gelatinized starch cells turns to steam, causing the chip to rapidly expand, creating a tender but crispy puffed chip. Making a puffed tapioca chip is a somewhat laborious process but watching a tiny, nearly inedible, dry pellet inflate into a tender, crispy, and delicious chip is a huge pay off.

This week I’m introducing something new to Garrett’s Table: Video! This video was shot on my iPhone. It’s certainly crude, but there must be a first for everything. The soundtrack is awesome though! Watch to learn how to turn your favorite mustard into a crispy pretzel chip. I’ve also included a recipe below the video.

Puffed Mustard Pretzel:

• 240 g water
• 80 g stone ground mustard
• 8 g salt
• 10 g white wine vinegar
• 20 g ground mustard seed
• 5 g onion powder, with 10 threads saffron
• 2 g xanthan gum (optional)
• 380 g tapioca starch
• 10 g kosher salt
• 10 g mustard seed
• 5 g powdered sugar

Combine the water, mustard, 8 g salt, vinegar, ground mustard, onion powder, and saffron in a blender. Blend on high speed. Add xanthan gum and blend for 1 minute. Add liquid mixture to tapioca starch and carefully combine with your hands or a rubber spatula. The dough will be a non-Newtonian fluid, which means it acts as both a liquid and a solid. When you handle the dough gently it will flow as a liquid, but when rapidly compressed it will stiffen and resist as a solid. This consistency is desired.

The next step is rolling the dough into thin sheets. I like to tape silpats to my work surface as spacers for my rolling pin. Place a layer of plastic wrap over your workspace, with the ends overlapping the silpats slightly. Place a thin log of dough in the center of the plastic and carefully place a second sheet of plastic over the first. Press down firmly in the center of the dough log with the rolling pin and roll upward and downward slowly to achieve a uniform thickness of about 1/16.'’

Place one dough sheet at a time in a steamer. Steam for 10 minutes, or until translucent. Allow the dough sheets to cool to room temperature. Once cooled, remove the plastic wrap and lay the dough sheets on a cutting board. Cut into pretzel shapes with a cookie cutter. Lay the shapes on the tray of a dehydrator and dry on low heat overnight, or until dry and brittle.

In a spice gringer, grind the 10 g kosher salt, 10 g mustard seed, and 5 g powdered sugar into a fine powder. This will be the final seasoning for the chips.

Heat a pot of oil to 400° F. Drop 3 dry chips into the hot oil. Use a spider or slotted spoon to completely submerge them in the oil as they puff and rise to the surface. Fry for 10 seconds and transfer to a paper towel. Lightly dust with seasoning mixture.

Keep visitin Garrett’s Table in the coming days for a wild recipe using these puffed pretzel chips!

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