Saturday, March 20, 2010

Home (Made) Easy: Breaded Turkey Zucchini Patties

8 comments Posted by Marisa Lyn at 8:38 PM

The other day I was feeling a little inspired and wanted to try out some new recipes. I have to admit I’m not good at recipe writing because I cook from feel most of the time. Yeah I know that is not good if the dish comes out tasty because how can I duplicate it if I don’t have it written down. Well most of the time I do take pictures of every step and try to write everything down immediately after. Well for this recipe I forgot to write everything down and I did not take a photo of every step. So here is my attempt at remembering what I did.

When I do cook by recipe I like recipes that have very few ingredients because I believe there is less chance for mistakes then. I believe it is important for someone who is cooking a recipe for the first time to get it as accurate as possible to have a baseline to go from when you attempt to tweak it to suit your own tastes. So when I create something I usually keep the original recipe down to only a few ingredients with room for expansion.

The other day I was looking for something different. Recently I have been trying to stay away from a lot of fried foods in an attempt to take off a few pounds but I began craving something fried. However instead of going out to a fast food place I decided to make something at home. That way I can control the ingredients that will go into it.

I went into my pantry and found that I had some zucchini that I bought for another project. I didn’t want it to go bad so I decided to experiment with some dishes. The first one I made I won’t mention now because it came out less than stellar. Then I decided to add some to some ground turkey along with some shredded cheese I had and it was on. Here is the result of my labor.



Ingredients
1 lb ground turkey
1/2 cup finely shredded zucchini
1/2 cup shredded cheese
1 1/2 cup of panko breadcrumbs
1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil

Seasonings
Salt
Pepper
1/2 teaspoon seasoning salt
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder (optional)

Batter
1 Egg
8 teaspoons cold water
4 tablspoons of flour

Note that all of the seasoning is approximated because I very rarely measure except when I am baking. I will update this post the next time I make this dish with true measurements (I hope ;~)).

Directions

1. Combine ground turkey, shredded zucchini and shredded cheese then season to taste. Mix well

2. Take about 1 teaspoon full of the mix and create small patties. Place them on a plate and cover them with wax paper and place in the refrigerator to chill and firm up for about 30 minutes. The firming not absolutely necessary but I find it makes the patties easier to handle when putting into the batter and panko bread crumbs.

Note I used the following method to create my patties for this recipe. (see photo below)

Wax paper roll method:

· Tear off a piece of wax paper about 12 inches long.
· Take mixture from the bowl and form it into a rough sausage shape.
· Place on the wax paper about 5 inches from the end.
· Place the end of the wax paper over the turkey roll leaving a short edge you will use to hold on to.
· With a cutting board place it against the roll on top of the wax paper and pull to form a tight even roll.
· Then roll up in the remainder of the wax paper, twist the ends closed and stick it in your freezer to chill and firm up for about 20 minutes.
· Once chilled remove wax paper and place on a cutting board. With a very sharp knife cut off even slices about 1/2 inch thick.



3. Once the patties are chilled make the batter and in another bowl put the panko bread crumbs for breading the patties.

4. Combine the egg, cold water and flour in a bowl and mix well. Also this is the time to turn on your skillet to heat the oil. Note I did not give a temperature amount for the oil because I know that every cook surface is different. I place mine to medium heat and that worked for me. Please experiment with one patty to check to see if you temperature is right.

5. Dip the patty into the batter covering it and then place it in a bowl filled with the panko bread crumbs.

6. Cover the patties with the bread crumbs and set them aside on wax paper the set.

7. Place no more than 3 patties in at a time so as there is not a significant drop in the temperature of the oil.


8. Fry to a golden brown. Let cool and serve.



These patties can be cooked in advance then reheated. I use a toaster oven set at 380° for 10-15 minutes. These patties are also the perfect size for bento so they will be included into my bento stash in the freezer.

I will be experimenting with other vegetables and seasonings and will keep you updated.

So until next time.

Itadaki masu!

 

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Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Home (Made) Easy: Fiesta Rice Balls

6 comments Posted by Marisa Lyn at 8:16 AM


As I was trying to come up with my bento for Valentine’s Day I was trying to figure out what can I put in that is different from my usual stuff. That is when I remembered seeing an episode of Road Tasted with Bobby and Jamie Dean on the Food Network. The episode was called New York-Forgettaboutit and they went to a place called Landi’s Pork Store. At this place they are famous for a deep fried rice ball that looked absolutely delicious. Ever since then I have been trying to figure out how to make rice balls myself but could never get them to come out right until now. I owe some of my success to Claudia of What’s Cookin’ Italian Style Cuisine. She wrote a post on her Grandma Victoria’s rice balls. So I was then inspired to do my own. My recipe differs form Claudia’s and the one at Landi’s because I wanted to achieve a different taste.


Ingredients:

1 cup cooked rice
2 Tbsp Soy Sauce
1/2 cup Broccoli cooked and finely chopped
1 Tbsp Hidden Valley Ranch Fiesta Dip Mix
3 Tbsp parmesan cheese
2 Eggs
Panko Bread Crumbs
Flour
Cayenne
Cumin

Prep Note:

Cook and chop broccoli. I love that taste of my broccoli. I sauté it in butter with a little garlic powder. I use a frozen broccoli and put it in the pan frozen. Once the broccoli is coated with the butter/garlic I turn down the heat slightly and put on a lid to help it thaw out then turn the heat back up to finish cooking them. However for this recipe I only kept them in long enough to thaw them out so that they could be chopped to go in my rice mix.

Directions:

Take one cup of cooked rice. This recipe works better if the rice is left over from the previous day or even two days prior. Put it in a skillet with about 3 tsp of vegetable oil stirring constantly to heat up the rice.

Then add in 2 tbsp of soy sauce and mix together.

Once thoroughly mixed add in the chopped broccoli as well as cayenne, and cumin to taste. Remove from the heat to another bowl to cool slightly.

Once cooled add in 1 egg, the fiesta dip mix and parmesan cheese and mix well.

Roll the rice mix into 1/2 inch balls. Because this mix is very sticky I suggest that you roll all of your rice at one time before going on to the next step.

As these can be deep fried or oven cooked either method you chose should be preheated. Heat your skillet to medium and your oven (I use a toaster oven) to between 380°-400°.

As this next part can be very messy I suggest that you do this part in steps also. In a bowl put in about a half of a cup of flour. Then roll all of your rice balls in the flour before moving on to the next step. I have also found that when you let the rice balls rest after flouring them the egg and panko bread crumbs stick better.

Then take the floured rice balls and first roll them in the egg in bowl 2 and then the panko breadcrumbs in bowl three. Roll one at a time and set them aside on a plate to rest before dropping them into the hot oil.

Drop in only 4-5 rice balls at a time as they will brown up very quickly. Keep turning them in the oil till they are a golden brown. Then remove and drain.

If you are using the oven method just line them up on a pan after rolling them in the egg and panko bread crumbs, that has been sprayed with cooking spray and drizzle them with any oil such as olive oil. I did not do this with the batch that I baked and even though they still came out tasty they were a little dry on the outside.


Serve alone or with a complimentary dipping sauce like one made from the Hidden Valley Ranch Fiesta Dip mix that was used in the rice mix. Also if you have any left over they can be eaten the next day. Just place them in the oven on 380° for about 5 minutes or until crispy again. I am not sure at this point if they can be put in the freezer for later as I did not have any left over to test but when I make another batch I will test it out and update this post.

Note: Please test out the oven temperature of your own oven because I used a toaster oven for this recipe and a large oven will heat up more than a toaster oven. So all of the temperature references are according to how a toaster oven will cook.

I hope you enjoyed this recipe as much as I did making it.

I would also like to thanks Claudia of What’s Cookin’ Italian Style Cuisine for the inspiration for these rice balls.

So until next time.

Itadaki masu!


 

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