Crunch time

Rice crackers are the cracker of Japan.  They are everywhere.  They are offered at tea time with guests, munched on as a snack in the afternoon, and grabbed for a late night salty snack.  Rice crackers come in all shapes and sizes.  We recently bought cat face shaped rice crackers at Asakusa.

Finding unique rice crackers (beyond shape) can be quite the challenge, but every once in a while we stumble upon a find.  On my last trip to Kawagoe, I found "make your own rice crackers" where you take the dry, thin dough and bake it or fry it until it puffs up and becomes a yummy cracker.

I stuck them in the freezer to keep them fresh

until we were ready to cook them.

We were excited to see this fun activity, but even more so when we saw it was gluten free.  (Many rice crackers contain soy sauce, which is not gluten free unless it is made in the traditional way or is specifically labeled.)  We have friends with celiac that we're always keeping an eye out for treats that we can enjoy together.  This fit the bill.

When the friends were coming over for a movie night - Pete's Dragon! - we thought it was the perfect opportunity to try the rice crackers.

Using the fish oven on our stove, we laid the hard pieces of cracker dough onto the rack.  After a minute or two, we used long cooking chopsticks to flip them over.  We kept a careful eye on them to ensure they wouldn't burn.

They puffed up to triple or quadruple the thickness, and nicely toasted on the outside.  A few of them produced bubbles on them, which added an extra crunch.

The cooking was quick and easy, but it was so much fun to make them.  And everyone agreed, it was even better to eat them.