Broccoli, crabcakes and beer - oh my!
It seems that as soon as I start working, I stop cooking. This happens for various reasons: I'm tired, I'm unmotivated, I lose culinary creativity, I crave junkfood... etc etc etc. I was shaming myself for this, plus, our wallet was rather suffering from sushi takeout and fancy burger dine ins.
Healthy food was in order. Much to hubby's chagrin, I made him purchase a significant amount of broccoli. The task at hand was, how to make a person, who will not eat vegetables he can see and recognize, eat broccoli?
This is a recipe I blatantly plagiarized off a youtube video of my favorite chef, Gordon Ramsay, and then ruined by adapting it to my kitchen. It's SO easy that it's ridiculous.
Camouflage vegetable of the day
a bunch of broccoli (3 heads is what I had)
a pot of water, salted
goat cheese
some sort of nut (walnut, pecan, pine)
pepper
a little oil
some fake seasoning, like garlic salt
1) Boil water.
2) Add broccoli florets. Boil for about 3 minutes: you want the broccoli kind of crisp, not mushy. It should be brilliantly green, not pukey green.
3) Fish out the broccoli and put it in the blender. Add about a ladle or so of the boiling water. Blitz. Adjust texture with some more water if needed. Taste and adjust seasoning.
4) Cut goat cheese into circles. (looks prettier than crumbs) Put onto plate or bowl, sprinkle with the nuts.
5) Pour the broccoli puree in like so:
5) A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a dash of whatever fake seasoning of your choice (to really fool the tastebuds of a vegetable hater).
(note the brilliant green, see that?)
DONE!
Serve it up and call it "soup."
Well, I can fool a carnivore into eating broccoli puree, but I can't make him full with it.
I figured, ok, if I can make kotletki and lamb burgers, I can handle some crabcakes! A little of this'n that, a dash of the other, and some stuff to hold it together - and voila! right? So, between epicurious, friends' advice, and the most influential driver of the situation - what's available in my fridge - I came up with this, and I must say, it was good!
Experimental crabcakes
1 lb crab meat (fresh is best, I had pasteurized but real stuff)
celery (I don't like celery, so I only used 1/2 stalk, for flavor), chopped
red pepper, about half, seeded, chopped
scallions, a couple, chopped
2.5 eggs (that's what it turned out to need)
a couple squeezes mayo
1 T or so dijon mustard
breadcrumbs (I ended up with 4 T)
Sea salt, a few hearty pinches
pepper (white or black)
The process (easy as can be):
1) Whisk the eggs, mayo and mustard.
2) Fork-mash the crabmeat and the veggies together.
3) Pour egg mixture into crabmeat mixture
4) Fork-mash some more, while adding breadcrumbs, until the stuff has consistency that looks like it could stand up on its own.
5) Scoop them up into balls with your hands (this is the fun part), and slap them into patties.
6) Pan-fry in butter or oil until golden brown - can finish up in the oven (or toaster oven in my case)
They looked almost like real crabcakes in the end, and wicked impressive.
Don't forget to sing, clap, make t shirts and take pictures so you can post them on your dorky blog.
Healthy food was in order. Much to hubby's chagrin, I made him purchase a significant amount of broccoli. The task at hand was, how to make a person, who will not eat vegetables he can see and recognize, eat broccoli?
This is a recipe I blatantly plagiarized off a youtube video of my favorite chef, Gordon Ramsay, and then ruined by adapting it to my kitchen. It's SO easy that it's ridiculous.
Camouflage vegetable of the day
a bunch of broccoli (3 heads is what I had)
a pot of water, salted
goat cheese
some sort of nut (walnut, pecan, pine)
pepper
a little oil
some fake seasoning, like garlic salt
1) Boil water.
2) Add broccoli florets. Boil for about 3 minutes: you want the broccoli kind of crisp, not mushy. It should be brilliantly green, not pukey green.
3) Fish out the broccoli and put it in the blender. Add about a ladle or so of the boiling water. Blitz. Adjust texture with some more water if needed. Taste and adjust seasoning.
4) Cut goat cheese into circles. (looks prettier than crumbs) Put onto plate or bowl, sprinkle with the nuts.
5) Pour the broccoli puree in like so:
5) A drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, and a dash of whatever fake seasoning of your choice (to really fool the tastebuds of a vegetable hater).
(note the brilliant green, see that?)
DONE!
Serve it up and call it "soup."
Well, I can fool a carnivore into eating broccoli puree, but I can't make him full with it.
I figured, ok, if I can make kotletki and lamb burgers, I can handle some crabcakes! A little of this'n that, a dash of the other, and some stuff to hold it together - and voila! right? So, between epicurious, friends' advice, and the most influential driver of the situation - what's available in my fridge - I came up with this, and I must say, it was good!
Experimental crabcakes
1 lb crab meat (fresh is best, I had pasteurized but real stuff)
celery (I don't like celery, so I only used 1/2 stalk, for flavor), chopped
red pepper, about half, seeded, chopped
scallions, a couple, chopped
2.5 eggs (that's what it turned out to need)
a couple squeezes mayo
1 T or so dijon mustard
breadcrumbs (I ended up with 4 T)
Sea salt, a few hearty pinches
pepper (white or black)
The process (easy as can be):
1) Whisk the eggs, mayo and mustard.
2) Fork-mash the crabmeat and the veggies together.
3) Pour egg mixture into crabmeat mixture
4) Fork-mash some more, while adding breadcrumbs, until the stuff has consistency that looks like it could stand up on its own.
5) Scoop them up into balls with your hands (this is the fun part), and slap them into patties.
6) Pan-fry in butter or oil until golden brown - can finish up in the oven (or toaster oven in my case)
They looked almost like real crabcakes in the end, and wicked impressive.
Don't forget to sing, clap, make t shirts and take pictures so you can post them on your dorky blog.
Comments
And that is an ingenious way to sneakily make broccoli less broccoli-like. A doctor in the kitchen too? hehe.