Small Batch Artisanal Tortilla Chips

Turns out kick off isn't till 4:15pm today (I thought it was at 1) so we've got a couple more pre game hours to get some things done. Rebby is shoveling the steps, and I decided to make these, to go with some chile cheese dip and the rest of the chili I made yesterday. Football food.
This process is a huge pain in the ass, let me be clear....but the results are so worth it. I don't know if you've ever had a tortilla chip fried in lard (I think most restaurants have switched to vegetable oil) but it's a completely different experience from "healthy" oil fried chips. And miles away from even the best thing you would get out of a bag.
I started by thawing out about 30 corn tortillas in the microwave. I keep big bags of tortillas from Reynas in the Strip in the freezer and peel off a stack when I need them. They thaw in the micro in about 2 minutes.
Then I melted some lard in my cast iron mini cauldron. It would certainly be less of a pain in the ass to use a larger pot, but I didn't want to go through too much lard at one time. That stuff is semi solid gold around here. That being said, it is probably wasteful of me to use my fine leaf lard for frying---I should really save it for pastry and render down some of the back fat I have in the freezer for frying. That will be next week's project.
Anyhow, While the lard was melting and the tortillas thawing, I turned on the exhaust fan and set our big kitchen king floor fan in the hallway. This is crucial because despite the fact that we have a (kinda lame) exhaust hood, just about any frying will set off the smoke alarm on the second floor. It drives me insane. But I've figured out that if I have the fan blowing into the kitchen it keeps the smoke from getting out of the room. Some day I'll have a ceiling fan in the kitchen and then hopefully it will be a non issue.
So, the arena is set. I snipped the tortillas into triangles with kitchen scissors:

and then scooped 4-5 at a time into the very hot fat. It is at this point that I always remember the nice big mesh skimmer I have actually is in the restaurant kitchen, not the home kitchen, and curse myself yet again. This happens more than I care to admit---thinking I have a tool in one place when it actually lives in a different place. So, I have to use a slotted spoon to fish them out.

The slotted spoon method is pretty wasteful because invariably a decent amount of fat ends up on the stove or the paper towels in transport. I need to remember to get me one of those skimmer things.
The chips fry for about 40 seconds---just till they start to get some color. They'll get darker as they cool. Skim them out and transfer to paper towels to drain slightly.
Then I toss them in a big bowl and sprinkle salt over every third or fourth batch.

The whole thing actually took me less than half an hour though it seemed like an eternity. Still, worth every second.