Weird, delicious, and beautiful, this is everything we could ask for in the SoraKitchen.

Japan’s Shine Muscat grapes have been skyrocketing in popularity in foodie circles around the globe. First cultivated in Japan in 2006, Shine Muscat grapes are prized for their size, firmness, and sweetness, so prized that they cost several times more than ordinary green grapes.

So when our Japanese-language reporter Go Hatori got his hands on some Shine Muscats, what did he pair them with? Potato chips. Not some gourmet, artisanal potato chips, either. Nope, Go took the most exalted grapes in all of Japan and put them on some Pringles you can pick up at any convenience store.

As for why Go would do such a thing, well, someone told him to. Actually, someone told Go’s friend to eat their Shine Muscats this way, and Go’s friend then told him. Of course, you might still blame Go for this potential travesty, asking “If someone told Go to go jump off a bridge, would he?” That answer depends largely on whether or not he could survive the jump and also write an article about the experience, and with no worries for either of those criteria here, Go decided to take a chance on a very unusual recipe created by his friend’s friend.

If you’re adventurous enough to try it yourself too, you’ll need the following ingredients.

● Shine Muscat grapes
● Cream cheese
● Honey
● Black pepper
● Sour Cream and Onion-flavor Pringles

Step 1: Cut the Shine Muscat grapes into halves.

Step 2: Gently spread cream cheese onto the Pringles

Step 3: Place a half Shine Muscat on top of the cream cheese. This is why we sliced the grapes and used Pringles instead of another brand, so that we’d have a flat, stable piece of fruit and a curved chip to help keep everything in place.

Step 4: Drizzle honey directly onto the Shine Muscat, but use enough so that it drips down onto the cheese and chip too.

Even before taking a taste, Go was incredibly impressed by how these looked. Aside from the Shine Muscats, none of the ingredients are anything fancy, but when combined like this they felt incredibly stylish, the sort of thing you’d place a plate of poolside when having friends and associates over to your villa for an afternoon of hors d’oeuvres and clever conversation.

And for the finishing touch, although Go’s friend’s friend says this is optional, a dash of black pepper.

So did these “Shine Pringles” taste as good as they looked? Oh yes. As you bite into the grape from the top and chip from below, you get a bursting sensation of textures and flavors, not just sweet and savory but also with a touch of tartness from the grapes and spice from the pepper, with the cream cheese and honey helping to tie everything together. It was fantastic, and so immensely satisfying that as he ate the second chip, Go felt like he was getting a glimpse of the kind of person his friend’s friend is, someone stylish and creative, a flexibly thinking, open-minded individual who leads a free and happy life.

Setting aside all that lofty speculation, what Go can say for sure is that this turned out way better than he’d expected. Even if you can’t find Shine Muscats, or if you can but they’re not in your budget right now, theoretically you should be able to get tasty results with less expensive kinds of grapes too, seeing as how even though Shine Muscats are considered especially flavorful, their basic flavor profile isn’t wildly different from the baseline green grape one.

In the end, not only did Go learn a great new recipe, we also got a delicious reminder about the importance of not mocking something until you’ve tried it, and Go’s ears are open for more unusual ideas to taste test whenever anyone has one to suggest.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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[ Read in Japanese ]