Excerpted from the book, Coi: Stories and Recipes by Daniel Patterson. Copyright Phaidon Press.

(Yields a lot)

Ingredients for Puffed brown rice crackers

  • 240 g brown rice
  • 500 g water
  • soy oil
  • piment d’Espelette
  • 0.5 g salt

Ingredients for Avocado dip

  • 2 avocados
  • pure olive oil
  • lime juice
  • salt

To serve

  • sprouts, like sunflower, borage, mung bean, radish

Instructions

Cook the rice, water and salt in a heavy pot, covered until it’s completely overcooked, and all of the liquid is absorbed. Blend until it’s smooth and spreadable. Spread in thin layers on two baking trays lined with Silpats. Dehydrate at 127°F (53°C) overnight. In the morning the layers should be completely dry and peel away easily from the Silpat.

Fry in 550°F (290°C) soy oil. (We heat the oil until it is practically smoking and our thermometer needle is all the way on the right, past all of the numbers.) Break the dried rice into pieces and place carefully into the oil. Fry them one piece at a time. They should blister and puff within a few seconds. Flip, wait a few seconds and then remove onto a sheet tray lined with paper towels. Sprinkle with piment d’Espelette (a sweet, slightly spicy dried pepper, originally from the Basque region of France, now grown here), or other mildly spicy, flavorful dried chile. Hold warm.

For the dip, cut the avocados in half and remove the pit. Sprinkle the cut sides with salt and sear on a hot plancha with a little pure olive oil until lightly browned. Scoop out the flesh and blend in a mixer until smooth. Season with lime juice and salt.

To serve, pile a few crackers in a bowl. Add a spoonful of avocado purée next to them, and sprinkle a few different kinds of sprouts on top of the crackers.