Arrowhead Chips or Fried Ngaku 炸芽菇饼

Some call it Chiku 慈菇, some call it NgaKu 芽菇... As to why some call male offsprings Chikuting...haha, solve it urself. These are only available around Chinese New Year, so it's a goodie. If u don't eat them now, it's hard to get them later on in the year.

Arrowhead used to cost a lot years back then.. before Tesco came to our shores. Back when I first learnt to make this, it could cost RM10/kg at wet markets. Then many years went on (I no longer frequent wet markets), supermarts or other hypermarts will go for RM6 something. Then Tesco came and played it bad, they sold it for RM3 something. Oh well, that year Giant, Carrefour and Jusco quickly reduced their price too, and I could remember how people grabbed the ngakus at Tesco. The following year, Tesco became even badder, going to RM2 something/kg. Me and my sis in law will be waiting for the Tesco workers to replenish the basket, with plastic bags in our hands, ever ready. And when they do refill, we couldn't even see our own hands or what we took, we could just take and put whatever into the bags cos there will be so many hands. I saw a man among the women,, he wasn't shy, and he shoved his arms thru the women's armpits and grabbed the arowheads by the handsful. If u felt groped, I'm so sorry that u won't know who did it cos there were so many arms. FYI, the wet markets at that time are still selling them at around RM6/kg, which explains the rush to grab.

These few years, there are no more arrowhead rushes.. as every hypermart is going for less than RM3/kg. So, u can take ur own sweet time to select and select and select. No need to grab under armpits or over shoulders.

I first tasted this fabulous oh so tasty, tastier than any Lays or Pringles chips way back in 1988. My friend, Siew Ping gave me some chips, fried by her Taiwanese mom. They tasted so different. They were ngaku chips, she told me. Well, I knew her mom, Mrs Loh as well, I always go to her house for some dough shaping sessions with her mom, especially during Siew Ping's birthdays, her mom always make us shape our own guotie. Mrs Loh taught me to peel, slice and pat the arrowhead slices on kitchen towels before frying. To me, pat all the slices????? That's super tedious!!! And super wasteful. I ignored that part of the instruction and just fried them right after slicing. And they turned out alright. Now I know why Mrs Loh only makes a small canister of it.

I know that most people know how to make this, but I'm not surprised that there are some who do not know. When I went to Jusco lately to get my arrowheads, a lady asked me, "What are these?"

"Ngaku lor" I answered.

"Oh.. so they look like this. How to select them?"

"Just get those with nice smooth butts, no cracks, then they'll be good"

"What else to do with them besides frying?"

"Lots..... bla bla bla bla bla.............."

**I'll try to post what we can do with arrowheads besides frying them into chips some other time.

Ok, so let me show you why buy those with no cracks...
In the cracks are dirt, and I'm sure u don't want to eat dirt. The deeper the crack the more dirt it'll have. Even if there's no dirt, the crevace will not give u a round flat chip, u'll still need to cut right up until u get a nice smooth surface. Wastage.

In this picture, u need to slice off 4 pieces to get a smooth clean surface. If for every ngaku u need to slice off few pieces, u'll lose a lot of chips. 4 pieces here is almost 30% of this bulb.

Now, how to fry the ngakus?

First, peel the ngakus, don't break off the stem. Use the stem as a handle when u slice it. Wash them clean of dirt and drain them. Slice them thinly. Do not wash after this. Water is the last thing the arrowhead slices ever need

U can use a food processor fitted with a slicing blade, but make sure u buy those that are smaller so that the bulbs can fit through the mouth of the feeder tube. If u use a food processor, u can cut off the stem.

  

Then heat a big wok of oil on medium heat. Throw in some salt (I prefer it this way, or u can salt them when fried). Add in sliced ngakus, piece by piece, vertically into the deepest part of the wok. Don't put too much. Make sure they don't overlap. If they do overlap, u must separate them fast.

Fry until there are no visible bubbles coming from the ngaku slice. (U can click on the pic to see an enlarged version)

Remove that piece to drain on paper. The ngakus won't be ready simultaneously..so after putting in the ngakus slice by slice, get ready ur chopstick and strainer ladle to pick up whichever piece that no longer has bubbles.

**Prepare ur draining trays with newspaper on the bottom, and top with disposable kitchen towels.

U can salt them at this point when they are still hot, or if u're like me (put salt in oil), u need not salt them.

Let them cool down totally, then u can pack them into canisters or air tight tupperwares.

Troubleshoot:

Chips not crunchy: U didn't fry until all the bubble are gone. No bubble means no more water in chips
Oily chips: Heat too low

Outer chip is brown but inside still fair and soft: Too high heat

Brown ends or brown spots on chips(as shown on right): Skin not peeled properly or bulb was bruised or not in good condition.

Pic: See the brown ends?? This slice was near the tip where I couldn't peel properly w/o breaking the stem, so there were bits of skin left.

U know what, I only bought 2kgs of ngakus at a RM2.90/kg. And I made enough to be sold for more RM60. Market price for fried chips are RM12/red cap plastic canister. This amount that I made can be put into more than 5 canisters. So.... u want to buy or make them urself????

I'm saving them for CNY, so Mike u can only eat whatever balance that I can't fit into these 2 large Enfagrow cans. Neh.. those at the back of the cans... see???? I fed those to him. :)