Queen’s participates in the annual Switch up your Lunch initiative with Good Food Oxford. Switch up your Lunch invites you to try a vegetarian or vegan option for lunch on one day in June in a bid to help slow climate change, conserve precious natural resources, and improve your health. This year, our Head Chef Sean Ducie cooked up a delicious rocket croquette with a butterhead lettuce pesto. He’s shared the recipe with us below.
Rocket croquette
Ingredients
- 100 g butter
- 120 g flour
- Two shallots
- Two cloves of garlic
- 300 g rocket
- 600 ml water
- salt (as needed)
- flour (as needed)Â
- whole egg (as needed)Â
- panko breadcrumbs (as needed)Â
Preparation method
- Use the flour and butter to make a roux
- Cook the roux over a low heat until done
- Finely dice (brunoise) the shallots and garlic and fry briefly in the roux
- Coarsely chop the rocket and fry in the roux for a few seconds
- Add the water while stirring continuously until you have a smooth mixture
- Set the mixture aside to cool
- Form the mixture into balls and coat with the flour, egg, and panko
- Store in the freezer until use, then deep-fry just before serving
Butterhead lettuce pesto
Ingredients
- Two heads of butterhead lettuce, outer leaves only
- 50 g pine nuts
- 50 g parmesan cheese, grated
- 1/2 clove garlic
- 200 ml olive oil
- salt  (as needed)
- pine nuts (as needed)
- parmesan cheese, grated (as needed)
Preparation method
- Blanch the lettuce leaves and chill over ice water
- Toast the pine nuts
- Make sure that the leaves are dry, and then chop them finely with the other ingredients
- Add extra pine nuts or Parmesan to tasteÂ
Photo: John Cairns
