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Monday, November 27, 2006

Fried Parsley with Sun-dried Tomato Cream Cheese



I originally encountered this dish during the closing dinner in Mexico this summer. I'd never heard of fried parsley before but as soon as I had tasted it I knew I would finally have a use for any future left over parsley. Really simple to make this one is sure to be a crowd pleasure not only for it's taste combination but also for the texture combination.

  1. You can buy preflavored cream cheese (the original dish was served with chipotle cream cheese) or you can flavor your own. For this recipe I added 2 teaspoons of sundried tomato paste to one tub of spreadable cream cheese. If you are flavoring your own cream cheese, make sure the flavor is subtle enough not to overpower the flavor of the parsley.

  2. In a pot with high sides, preheat vegetable oil over medium heat. If the oil starts to smoke, it's too hot. Dry the parsley as much as possible before frying. Unfortunately no matter how dry you think your parsley is, it will still splatter when frying, so make sure to use a splatter screen or be ready for some cleanup afterwards. Remove parsley leaves from the stalks, throw into oil, and fry for approximately 45 seconds. Remove the parlsey from the oil and dry on a paper towel. You may place the fried parsley in the oven on warm while you fry the rest to prevent it from turning soggy.

  3. Serve the fried parsley and cream cheese with slices of french bread. Spread the bread with a light coating of cream cheese and then smash the bread, cream cheese side down, into the parsley. Enjoy!

1 comment:

kickpleat said...

yum! i've never heard of fried parsley before but i'll bet it's great...especially the smashing the bread into the leaves part!