Times 2. I needed a way to use up some zucchini fast in a way that the kids would love. Immediately I thought "Fry it!" Here's our recipe for some super yummy zucchini chips that are eaten at a ridiculously quick rate, completely kid approved. They'd be especially good with homemade ranch dipping sauce. (See Copy Cat Ranch from last month's Challenge.)
Ingredients:4 medium zucchini, cut into 1/2-inch rounds (on the diagonal looks nice)
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 cups panko bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated parmesan
4 or 5 sprigs parsley, chopped (forgot to put them in the photo)
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
salt and pepper
3 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water
peanut oil for frying
The directions are pretty simple. Mix the panko, parmesan, parsley, red pepper flakes, salt and pepper in one bowl, place the flour in another, and mix the eggs with the water. Line them up: flour, egg wash, panko/cheese mix, cooling rack. Then line your kids up so that they end up being the ones with messy fingers. I don't mind getting messy, but I really don't enjoy breading my fingers.
They should end up looking like this, ready to go into the hot oil.
They don't take too long to fry, maybe 3 or 4 minutes on the first side and the same or a little less on the other side. The end result is crispy goodness with enough vegetable to be considered slightly healthy. If you pair them with really familiar foods they look downright chicken-nuggety enough to fool even the shirtless wonder, who gave it a thumbs up, but--after eating five--decided that he didn't like them any more. Umm. That's called being full, honey.
They don't take too long to fry, maybe 3 or 4 minutes on the first side and the same or a little less on the other side. The end result is crispy goodness with enough vegetable to be considered slightly healthy. If you pair them with really familiar foods they look downright chicken-nuggety enough to fool even the shirtless wonder, who gave it a thumbs up, but--after eating five--decided that he didn't like them any more. Umm. That's called being full, honey.
Camera-woman Annika loved them, as did I. I think I could eat around 20 of these each morning between a coffee breakfast and lunch. Elevenses is it called? Next time I make these (tomorrow at 11, anyone hungry around then?) I'm going to slice the zucchini a little bit thinner and add more pepper flakes. I like these with some salt sprinkled over them after they've been cooked so that you get an immediate salty buzz on the tongue, like one would with fries. This might work well as a zucchini parmesan with the zucchini sliced longways and breaded...
On to the zucchini bread, squash casserole and any other zucchini recipes any of the challengers throw my way!
I'll be over for fried zucchini... that looks awesome. Yummm.
ReplyDeleteLooking at your pictures, it's dawned on me that Ken's Sushi in Nashville (see my post below) must use Panko bread crumbs in their tempura. This had never occurred to me before. Now I want to try making tempura again to test this theory. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteMan, Matthew really is anti-shirt ain't he! I like that.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the zucchini - I really need to start making time to pop over to your house. I also love, love, love that you used garden ingredients. Brava!
These look very good and I need to try them! I often get greedy and buy too many zucchini at the farmer's markets, and this looks like a better way to use them than putting them in the compost!
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