Having off time in the summer is a great perk of this job. I've definitely been doing more cooking with all my free time. Last week I made experimental vegetarian zucchini "crab" cakes, and they were a total success! Because of the amount of zucchini we've been getting from the farm, I've been trying all sorts of zucchini recipes to keep from getting bored. I found seceral recipes online for zucchini sliders, so I mixed and matched from those recipes based on what I had in the house. They came out pretty well. As a side comment, Mike mentioned that they kind of had the texture of crab cakes, so I thought, why not change up the seasonings and try to make vegetarian "crab" cakes? Here it is...adapted from several zucchini slider recipes for the base plus ideas from the "Vegan Brunch" tempeh "crab" cake recipe.
1 cup grated zucchini (approximately 1 cup after squeezing out excess moisture, seems to be one large zucchini or two smaller zucchini)
1/2 cup grated or finely chopped carrot (I used my Magic Bullet to chop)
1/4 to 1/3 cup grated or finely chopped onion (see Magic Bullet above)
1 flax "egg" (1 tbsp ground flax seed plus 3 tbsp water mixed - made in the Magic Bullet) or 1 real egg
1 tsp plus a few more shakes of Old Bay seasoning to taste
A pinch of salt to taste
A few shakes of kelp granules
1/4 cup flour of your choice - I used whole wheat
1/4 cup goat cheese (the slider recipes all called for feta, but my mom got me a ton of goat cheese from Costco, so I used that instead and it seems to work. I think extra firm tofu might work too)
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. After you grate the zucchini (I used a small hole grater) squeeze out as much moisture as you can. You can do this with cheese cloth or I just did the best I could with my hands. In a medium sized mixing bowl,mix together the zucchini, carrot and onion. Add the seasonings until evenly mixed. Add the egg or flax "egg" and mix in. Add the flour and mix in completely. Add the goat cheese and mix until evenly distributed throughout. Regrigerate for a half hour or so. Prepare a baking sheet with parchment paper and spray with olive oil spray. The mixture will be very sticky and wet, but that's ok. Divide into eight equal balls and form into patties on the baking sheet. Spray tops with olive oil spray. Bake for 20 minutes. Flip patties over and bake for another 15-20 minutes until tops look crispy.
You can probably pan fry them instead of baking, but I was scared my patties would fall apart.
Serve with your crab cake sauce of choice..cocktail sauce, remoulade sauce, or whatever.
I really liked the flavor of these. Mike asked me how many zucchini it takes to make them and how much effort, which appears to mean he liked them enough that he's thinking about making them for himself.
2 comments:
These sound interesting, but good
They were good. I'll definitely make them again, and I plan t play around with the recipe to make other stuff, like maybe zucchini nuggets with tofu or tempeh and breaded sort of like chicken nuggets
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