Easy Churro Chips

Fall break Memphis trip. I drove down with Dustin Friday afternoon in his hand-me-down Honda Civic that he’d had since he’d turned sixteen. The drive was four hours, mostly on I-40 west out of Nashville and then south on I-55 through the Mississippi River-bottom country into Memphis. We arrived at his parents’ house in midtown Memphis around eight PM Friday. The house is a craftsman bungalow on a leafy street, the kind of two-story house with a deep front porch and a screen door that bangs the way Iris’s screen door bangs in Bristow.

Dustin’s mom hugged me at the door for a long time before she let me come inside. She said, “Honey, finally,” and pulled me into the entryway. The house smelled like spices I couldn’t identify exactly — cardamom, ginger, something tropical underneath. Dustin’s dad shook my hand twice (once when I came in, once after I’d set my bag down) and asked me how the drive had been. They gave me the corner guest room on the second floor at the front of the house, a room with a wooden sleigh bed and a small writing desk under the window and a lamp that turned on with a pull-chain.

Saturday morning Dustin’s mom fed me a Hawaiian breakfast at the kitchen table that I had not been expecting and that I will be writing about for the rest of my life. Macadamia nut pancakes with coconut syrup. Spam musubi (the breakfast version of the rice-and-spam-and-nori snack she’d grown up with). Pineapple-papaya fruit salad with fresh mint. Strong Kona coffee. She said she’d wanted to introduce me to the breakfast that had introduced her to Dustin’s dad on their second date in 1992. I ate everything. I asked her three technique questions. She gave me three thoughtful answers and one recipe card she pulled from a drawer.

Dustin’s dad gave me a tour of his record collection in the basement Saturday afternoon: rare seventies soul mostly, organized alphabetically, plus a small Beatles section he keeps on its own shelf because the Beatles “don’t belong with the rest of the catalog” (his words). He played me three Bobby Womack records I’d never heard before and one Otis Redding live cut from the Whisky a Go Go in 1966 that I will be looking up on Spotify when I get back to Nashville.

Dustin and I walked Beale Street Saturday night. We ate dry-rub ribs at the Rendezvous (the same pitmaster who’d given the senior class trip the dry-rub recipe was now retired, but his successor was excellent). We went to the Stax Museum and stood in the original recording-room space where Otis had cut “Try a Little Tenderness.” The trip was the right size. Three nights, a hundred and fifty miles round-trip, a family who had decided in advance to like me because Dustin had told them to.

Sunday morning before driving back to Nashville, I made churro chips for the family as a small thank-you bake before we left — the simplest possible recipe I could put together at eight AM with what was already in the Bryant family pantry. Eight large flour tortillas cut into wedges (each tortilla cut into eight wedges with a pizza wheel for sixty-four total wedges); brushed lightly with melted butter on both sides; tossed in a paper bag with a half-cup of granulated sugar mixed with two tablespoons of cinnamon; spread on a sheet pan in a single layer; baked at four hundred degrees for eight to ten minutes until the wedges were crispy at the edges and the cinnamon-sugar had caramelized into a thin sweet crust on top.

The recipe is dead simple, takes fifteen minutes start to finish, and produces a light crunchy snack that’s the perfect coffee-table accompaniment when family is gathered around the kitchen with mugs of coffee on a Sunday morning before a long drive. Dustin’s mom and I made them together because she had asked to help and I had wanted her to.

Dustin’s mom asked me at the kitchen table before we left if I’d come back at Christmas. She said specifically, in a quiet voice while Dustin and his dad were loading our bags into the Civic, “You and Dustin are good. Don’t mess that up. Come back at Christmas. We have a lot more cooking to do together.” That was the closest thing to a blessing I’ve ever gotten from anyone’s mother who wasn’t my own. I told her I’d be home with my family at Christmas but that I’d come down between Christmas and New Year if she’d have me. She would.

Tortilla wedges, butter, cinnamon-sugar, ten minutes. Here’s the snack.

Easy Churro Chips

Prep Time: 10 min | Cook Time: 10 min | Total Time: 20 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

• 8 small flour tortillas (6-inch)
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• Vegetable oil, for frying (about 2 cups)
• Chocolate dipping sauce or caramel sauce, for serving (optional)

Instructions

1. Mix the coating. In a wide, shallow bowl, stir together the granulated sugar, cinnamon, and salt until evenly combined. Set aside.
2. Cut the tortillas. Stack the flour tortillas and cut them into triangles or strips, roughly 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide. Brush both sides of each piece lightly with melted butter.
3. Heat the oil. Pour vegetable oil into a heavy-bottomed skillet or saucepan to a depth of about 1 inch. Heat over medium-high heat until it reaches 350°F (use a thermometer or test with a small tortilla scrap—it should sizzle immediately and float).
4. Fry in batches. Working in small batches so you don’t crowd the pan, fry the tortilla pieces for 1 to 2 minutes per side, turning once, until golden and crisp. Adjust heat as needed to maintain temperature.
5. Coat while hot. Use a slotted spoon or spider to transfer the fried chips directly into the cinnamon-sugar bowl. Toss immediately to coat all sides—the butter and residual heat help the sugar stick. Shake off any excess.
6. Drain and cool. Spread the coated churro chips in a single layer on a wire rack or paper-towel-lined baking sheet. Let cool for 3 to 4 minutes before serving—they crisp up further as they cool.
7. Serve. Arrange on a platter and serve warm with chocolate dipping sauce, caramel sauce, or enjoy them plain. Best eaten the same day.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 3g | Fat: 9g | Carbs: 30g | Fiber: 1g | Sodium: 190mg