Kambly ApériSticks Carotte Avec une touche de Chili

We visited Switzerland (thank you very much NHS Covid passport) and I wondered what this little packet of crispy sticks might taste like. 

A crispy snack made with carrots? Well, let’s see. There’s a good crunch, and the little crispy sticks seem much like any similar product… except for the lack of salt. Which is just seen (as fashion editors say) in the photo, but not immediately obvious on the product. The carrots do add an amazing whack of sweetness so not what you might expect in a crispy snack. Never underestimate a TV chef who tells you to add carrots for sweetness: it’s really true.

Quite a tasty snack, but a little too sweet for my taste. I prefer salt over sweet any day of the week. And they do ever so slightly gum themselves to your teeth which isn’t ideal. But perhaps I should have tried them with some hummus? I think that would work nicely.

Kambly Apérifeuilles Nature (+ recipe for Sour Cream & Chive Dip)

And here’s another apéro snack from Kambly, and as usual it comes in a silver baggie inside a cardboard box. It looked nice on the packet but when the Chef and I first tried this crispy snack we thought we’d made a mistake. It’s a bit dull.

Sometimes nature indicates a ready salted sort of flavour. Sometimes it’s more of a nothing. And despite the good crunch this crispy snack could do with a bit of assistance.

In the U.K. I would usually make tracks for the nearest supermarket and reach for a sour cream and chive dip. Sadly, here we are in beautiful Switzerland, social distancing in the time of Coronavirus, and although we can shop for food the bad news is that tasty dips are a bit thin on the ground. We have never seen a dip intended to be eaten with a crispy snack in Switzerland. Odd eh? Especially as the Swiss are quite keen on crispy snacks.

So not wanting to waste this leaf-shaped snack I looked online and decided to make my own dip.

There are a load of dip recipes available online. Some are as basic as chop a bunch of chives and mix into sour cream. Others are considerably more complicated and lots include mayonnaise which isn’t the same here as it is at home. So I did a little reading and a bit of thinking and came up with my own concoction.

2 spoons sour cream (or soured cream)
3 spoons Greek yogurt
A bunch of chives chopped small or snipped with kitchen scissors
A small clove of garlic chopped small
Lemon juice, about a teaspoon
Lemon zest... a little bit: see how much you think
Salt & Pepper to taste
And a teaspoon of sugar

I used a pudding spoon instead of a cup as my basic measure. I wasn’t at all sure this would taste good so I didn’t make too much to start with. This dip tastes ok when it’s freshly made but whole a lot better after a night in the fridge, and better again the next day. None of the recipes I read mentioned that important detail. But this snack plus 2 day old (matured) dip works very well indeed.

The packaging recommends you try this crispy snack with trout mousse or “whipped trout”. Trout is just about my least favourite fish and my friends know I don’t eat any fish (except smoked salmon which is different) for fun. So can you imagine how thrilled I was when a close relation who has known me my entire life gave me a smoked trout roulade for Christmas one year?  But if you are a fish fan perhaps the trout mousse suggestion might work for you.

Kambly Mini-Twist

Here’s a slightly crunchy, very buttery, mini twist of deliciousness. This Swiss crispy snack, which is also available in the EU, is slightly crumbly but not so much you end up with crumbs down your front (often my fate: just imagine). As so often with an apéro type snack it comes inside a silver baggie in a cardboard box.

Enjoy with a glass of wine, or maybe for breakfast?

Once again a crispy snack that seems a bit dull at first and then turns out to be the tastiest thing on the planet. I ate most of the packet (but it took me at least a week) before I remembered to take a photo.

Kambly ApériSticks Kartoffel & Rosmarin

The Chef and I have tried a couple of Kambly crispy snacks before, but this one is new (neu/nouveau) so we hadn’t seen a packet before.

Potato and rosemary eh? Shades of the late lamented crisps from Marks & Spencer: Reduced Fat Buttered Baked Potato which astonishingly really tasted of buttery baked potatoes.

I am absolutely not convinced you can taste any potato in this snack, and the rosemary is quite gentle but they do taste quite buttery (even though I’m not sure there is any butter in the recipe.). A nice crunch, and a subtle taste is rather undermined by the pale uncooked colour which is a shame because actually this is  not a bad snack. It’s just that we are conditioned to expect a brown colour to indicate a cooked and crunchy snack. And this is cooked and crunchy while remaining pale.

This was the Chef’s main gripe. “A bit pale”, he opined.

Kambly Les Ficelles aux Tomates & Fines Herbes

Kambly make a lot of lovely Swiss biscuits and crispy snacks too. The reluctant taste testers and I tried this heart shaped snack in 2014 and now I see that Kambly are celebrating their 25th birthday, I thought it was time to try another (we also have Kambly biscuits quite regularly but that’s not we’re here for).

Les Ficelles, basically a Swiss version of cheese straws, come in 6 different flavours. I looked on the website, which a bit strangely is in English (the Swiss have 3 main languages to choose from, a couple of lesser used languages, and a whole array of patois associated with local valleys or individual cities. And then quite a lot of people speak English... but not the ones you'd expect like the waiters in the station buffet at Basle railway station for example). Anyway, lots of information on the website including other products and recipes. Kohlrabi soup anyone? I've never eaten kohlrabi but apparently it’s an ideal accompaniment if you fancy a cheese straw or two.

I’m not sure I am really convinced by this crispy snack. For a start, and we all know this shouldn’t make a difference (but it does) most of the cheesy twists were broken when we opened the packet. This could have happened on the flight home from Switzerland but I’m not sure.

Then the tomato and herb flavour isn’t the most tomatoey ever. It’s OK but... The worst thing is that this snack is very dry. It feels a bit mass produced; which of course it is. But I’m sure I’ve tasted
similar cheese straw style snacks which feel a lot more homemade, where you can taste the butter, and they’re less crunchy and more flaky.

Having said that, it’s not a bad snack and I don't want to be too nasty about it. I wouldn't be surprised if you find yourself eating more than you expected.

Kambly Apéro Herzli Bio

Here's an interesting little heart-shaped biscuity salty snack from Swiss biscuit firm Kambly.

I found these in the local Co-op in Switzerland and indeed the smart metallic green packet also has the Co-op Naturaplan logo on it.

I thought the packet seemed sturdy enough to survive an encounter with the easyJet baggage handlers (obviously packed inside my suitcase...) and I was right. There don't seem to have been any breakages at all.

So I tried these crunchy biscuity snacks on the reluctant taste testers at work and after a little thought the team tucked in with a fair amount of enthusiasm. If I leave a bowl of crisps in the kitchen it's amazing how much grazing goes on during the day. Even crisps they claim not to like get eaten, but I think the taste testers really liked these little hearts.

As Very Skeptical taste tester put it, they must be healthy because they're full of nothing but air. Full of nothing but air and organic too.

But the taste? Well, they sort of taste of pretzel. Not very salty but with a little sprinkling of salt on and not very pretzelly but a gentle savoury something that is somehow rather good. And a nice light crunch.

I was a bit baffled when I opened the packet because, well, I don't know quite what I was expecting, but I don't think it was what I got. However, I find I quite like these little biscuits. And I love how they look. I know they are brown but it's a very smart brown. But not very like the hearts on the packaging which look more salty but less brown.

Time to sit back with an aperitif and enjoy a little bowl of Herzli.