I really dislike recipes that include pretentious, dare I say, wanky, ingredients. You can keep your toasted pine nuts and your roasted pistachios off my pizza thanks very much (and not just because my girls are allergic to nuts).
I like good, old fashioned recipes that use real, every day, food that doesn’t have an inflated price tag and that I probably have in my cupboard already. We eat a variety of food from various cultures, so my cupboards are usually pretty well stocked, just not with the snob factor ‘nuevo-cusine’ ‘big-plate-small-food’ type of ingredient.
So, I came across this recipe for zucchini chips and was initially thrilled. A new way to use up all the zucchinis we’ve been growing! But reading through the list of ingredients I was a bit put off by the requirement for fancy ‘panko’ bread crumbs.
Ok, I admit it…. first I was confused.
I had to ask Twitter (because twitter knows everything) what on earth a ‘panko bread crumb’ was. It turns out, panko bread crumbs are Japanese bread crumbs. Kind of big fat, extra crunchy white bread crumbs. Thanks twitter…. now I was definitely put off.
Who has stupid, pretentious, wanko panko bread crumbs in the cupboard? And not just plain every day panko, but ‘Italian style Panko’. Huh? Italian style Japanese bread crumbs??
No matter how much my twitter followers assured me that the panko bread crumbs were in fact delicious, and well worth the extra cost, I was still sceptical. I assumed my little local supermarket wouldn’t have such a crazy ingredient, and why not just use regular breadcrumbs anyway…. But deep down I knew.
I knew that the zucchini chips just wouldn’t be the same with regular every day bread crumbs.
So off I went, in search of some Panko. To my surprise even our closest tiny little supermarket had them, and they weren’t even that expensive. They only had the plain old Japanese style panko but it was pretty easy to add the herbs and stuff to make them into ‘italian style’ panko.
So I chipped and dipped and panko-ed and baked and what do you know…. The zuchinni chips were delicious, and the panko really were as good as everyone said they would be.
So here I am, eating my words as I eat my pretentious, wanky, zucchini chips!
Ooh yum sounds good
I must be wanky for I’ve been using Panko for ages now. I love them :)
damn it! I knew I was going to offend someone I liked! LOL
Perhaps it is just me who is wanky and needs to get over myself and embrace the joys of pretentious cuisine? LOL
LOL – It’s alright. Just last night I had this same conversation with Adam who was crumbing schnitzels.
“Where’s the breadcrumbs?”
“There’s Panko in the cupboard.”
“What the hell is a Panko?”
:)
I knew I liked your husband! LOL
A bit of wank sometimes cant hurt ;) That didn’t come out right!
I watch easy chinese cooking food on tv, real ingredients and really easy and yummy!
Oh SNAP! I bought some wankalicious panko crumbs today!
Was just going to use them for boring old chicken but zuchinni chips sound freaking awesome. HUZZAH!
Our garden has been producing the biggest and most abundant crop of zucchinis ever. I’m getting rather tired of zucchini slice, zucchini fritters and zucchini on homemade pizza, so going to head out today and get me some Panko so I can make some pretentious, wanky zucchini chips!! They sound yum.
Now, where’s your Stumble button!!!
Fantastic, I always have an abundance of zucchinis and have been looking for new ways of cooking them although I will have to wait in anticipation now to try these as I have just finished eating this seasons crop. Thanks for the recipe.