Ever since I saw this dish on The Best Thing I Ever Ate - Totally Fried I really wanted to try it but didn't think I'd ever get the chance unless I made the trip out to Cleveland. Aaron Sanchez said this was the best fried dish he's ever had and I'm guessing he's had the opportunity to try a lot of dishes. It's an appetizer on Michael Symon's menu at Lolita (although I just checked out their menu online and I don't see it...would be such a shame to actually make it there one day and they no longer serve it). I'm just surprised the recipe doesn't call for bacon or any other pork product since Michael's involved, although I think he mentioned his sous chef is the one that came up with the idea of fried brussels sprouts.Fresh brussels sprouts are a lot of work but they're one of my favorite veggies so it's usually worth it. As usual I had to buy some new ingredients for the dish...anchovies and capers. I was proud of myself for actually locating them in the grocery store on my own, although the bottle of capers that I picked wasn't in the system so somebody had to go look up the price and key it in for me. So much for the self-checkout. I decided to do the frying in my dutch oven instead of the snack fryer in hopes that I could do more at a time and I think that was a good decision. I was able to do over three pounds of sprouts in just three batches, although the temp went below 350 degrees right away. The first batch browned up in under a minute but the other two took a few minutes. The things splattered oil all over the place! Next time (and there's definitely going to be many more times..) I think I'm going to try just roasting them instead because I don't think the deep frying is what made this dish so delish. The flavors of the dressing are amazing with the red wine vinegar, saltiness of the anchovies and capers, and the crunch of the walnuts. Soooo good...
The Quick & Dirty
Changes:
- Pretty much nothing...if you can't trust a recipe from an Iron Chef what in this life can you trust??
- Didn't have quite 2 cups of parsley only because the package I bought was only about 1 1/2 cups
Yumminess:
- Pretty much everything! Every bite is just an explosion of flavor in your mouth
- If you're not one who usually likes brussels sprouts, I think you'd still like this dish because of everything else going on in it
- The first time I've ever cooked with anchovies and it turned out great! Although I couldn't really taste them with everything else, but hey you have to start somewhere
Sadness:
- It is a quite a bit of prep work and clean up, but I made a lot so hopefully the leftovers warm up nicely
- I spent so long taking pictures of my masterpiece that they weren't steaming hot anymore when I finally got to try them
- With the deep frying and other ingredients all of the nutrition of the veggies is probably lost, but I am definitely going to try and make a "lighter" version and see if it's still as yummy
- I wasn't sure what would taste good with it so I just made a simple breaded chicken breast but next to the sprouts it basically had no flavor. Next time I'm thinkin' a juicy steak might actually stand up next to these bold flavors
No comments:
Post a Comment