Fried Goat Cheese, to top…well, most anything
I am just back from spring break in glorious Berkeley and Big Sur, where I ate and ate and ate, and slept some, and hiked some, and mostly sat in the sun and let my poor undernourished Minnesota skin get some color. And where, besides one Very Oppressive book, I didn’t do a lick of reading for school (though plenty of New Yorker catch up). So now, I am feeling…not exactly overwhelmed (thanks be, my apartment is so clean and everything is so in order), but I have a lot to do.
I do not particularly like coming home to an empty fridge and an especially busy schedule, but nothing is more likely to make me even crankier than letting my eating habits go to pot as well. As I wrote when I first moved to Minnesota, and was eating salad almost every day, it’s a lot easier (and cheaper and better for you) to just make something up right-quick than to even get take-out all the time.
Enter fried goat cheese, which can be done up super right-quick, uses only three ingredients that I usually have around anyway (even in back-from-Spring-Break chaos), and which will dress up anything (typically salad) enough to make you feel like you got a proper meal.
Now that I’ve done this once, I can’t quite believe it took me so long to try it. I don’t know what I thought was going to ensue, but I certainly didn’t think it would be as easy to fry goat cheese as it was.
Here’s what you need: Goat cheese (preferably straight from the fridge), an egg, panko or breadcrumbs. Also, some Pam, or similar spray.
Here’s what you do:
1. Cut chilled goat cheese into a disc, or shape a disc with your hands. (You want to handle it as little as possible so it doesn’t get melty before you even put it on the heat.)
2. Get out two small bowls. In one, beat the egg. In the other, pour some breadcrumbs/panko.
3. Heat the pan, spray with Pam.
4. Dip the goat cheese disc(s) in the egg on both sides, and then in the breadcrumbs on both sides. You can use a fork to do this, so you don’t get claw hand.
5. Add to pan. Fry until golden (mine got a little burnt, which was fine) on either side.
6. Add to this salad (mine is minus almonds and kumquats, and plus grapefruit sections), or any salad, or anything you want!
I advise it is super good to put the hot cheese cakes on the salad right away. The wilted greens and veggies add a delicious taste with the hot cheese. Yummy!