The original menu plan was to make the Chive Risotto Cakes with the Parmesan Roasted Broccoli as a side*. I don't know what the hell I did wrong, but here's how the broccoli turned out:
See the brown pieces? Yeah, that's the garlic. If you've burned garlic before, you know exactly how rank my kitchen smelled.
As I often do, I halved the recipe so, instead of 4 pounds of broccoli, I used 2 pounds. But I kept the cooking time the same: 20 minutes at 425 degrees. I'm not giving up on this recipe but, for the time being, this dish had a date with the trash. But what to do with the lemon-olive oil-pine nut dressing I had already whisked together for this?
I looked in the fridge and, sure enough, I had salad greens. So the would-be broccoli dressing became the dressing for a light salad. Yes!
The Chive Risotto Cakes were friggin sublime. I had a bit of a problem when it came to coating the cakes with the panko because I hadn't let the mixture refrigerate for 2 hours to overnight like Ina said; instead, I did the holy-crap-I-have-to-refrigerate-this?! thing and stuck the bowl in the freezer for 30 minutes. But hear me now: Ina's serious. Refrigerate this properly.
Nevertheless, it turned out okay. Crispy on the outside, creamy and decadent inside. The recipe calls for chives in the mixture but, naturally, Kiddo won't touch anything with foreign green thingies in it. Instead I just sprinkled the chives as garnish for me and Adam. The results:
The great news? We had a ton of leftover cakes so I reheated them the next night (350 degree oven for about 20 minutes) and they were every bit as crispy and creamy as the night before. The second time around, I added some sour cream on the side for dipping. I mixed some chives and fresh pepper into me and Adam's - it was phenomenal with the cakes.
All hail, yet again, to Ina! And I can't recommend Back to Basics enough, particularly if you're just starting out in the kitchen and want to launch right into impressive but deceptively easy-to-make recipes.
Eat, drink, and be a problem solver in the kitchen.
* Okay, librarian friends, I need some copyright help. I thought that I wasn't able to print a recipe here if I had followed it exactly. I can only print it if I've altered it and, even then, I still have to give credit to the original source, right? I haven't been printing any recipes but, sure enough, I look on the blogosphere and bloggers all over have printed Ina's Chive Risotto Cakes recipe. What's the story on copyright? And why, as librarians, are we always so obsessed with copyright?
