This time I used broccoli and zucchini from the garden, but there are a large variety of vegetables that can be prepared this way to create a colourful dish. You may deep fry the vegetables, but a half inch layer of vegetable or light olive oil [not extra virgin] is perfectly sufficient to fry up a large batch. This is a versatile dish,serve it as a side or a snack with dipping sauce or in place of meat in a vegetarian meal. This is a good way to start kids on vegetables, who otherwise would turn up their noses on everything green. Over the years the baby of the family was gradually seduced to eat meat this way. Without deep frying we would have been stuck on hot dogs. But she eats chicken, pork, halibut, and grouse
now and not strictly fried. Currently we are working our way through the vegetables...
PARMESAN CRUSTED VEGETABLES
4 cups of vegetable wedges of choice:
[carrots, sweet potato, parsnip, broccoli, zucchini, cauliflower, large mushrooms, eggplant...]
1/2 cup flour
2 eggs, whisked
1/2 cup shaved parmesan
oil for frying
salt
- If you have a large batch, preheat the oven to 160F. This is where you will transfer the freshly fried vegetables to keep warm. Omit this step for a small batch.
- Wash, drain and dry the vegetables with paper towels.
- Cut them into bite size lengths. The softer vegetables like the zucchini should be cut into thicker wedges, the carrots sliced thinner. The mushrooms depending on size may be left whole or cut into halves. The eggplant should be sliced.
- Place the flour the eggs and the parmesan cheese in separate bowls.
- Dip the vegetables into the flour, the egg next, then roll into the shaved parmesan and then back for a slight dip into the flour again. Be casual about it, you don’t want to uniformly coat the vegetables.
- For a small amount of vegetables, I put a scoop of flour into a small baking dish, roll the vegetables into the flour, whisk up an egg and pour it on top, dump a handful of parmesan on the whole thing and just roll the vegetables around, haphazardly coating them.
- Add half an inch of oil, or less to a heavy fry pan and heat it up on medium high heat.
- Piece by piece lower the first batch of vegetables into the hot oil, making sure there is room left to turn them during frying. Use a pair of kitchen thongs to turn, or flip them with a fork, but don’t pierce them.
- Fry for 1-2 minutes or until the vegetables are tender and golden.
- Transfer to baking tray lined with paper towel.
- Place in the preheated oven to keep warm.
- When all the vegetables are fried, transfer them to a serving plate and sprinkle with salt.
- Serve immediately.
