March 3, 2026
Today I made chicken burger with the remainder of the broccoli I didn't make on the weekend
Ingredients: pre-made breaded chicken patty (frozen), hamburger bun, pre-sliced cheese (medium cheddar), BBQ sauce (bottled), broccoli, canola oil, salt, pepper
Procedure: broccoli was made the same as previously, except cooked for a few minutes less due to small size of florets (14 minutes + however long it took me to assemble the burger because they didn't look quite done yet). I was also more generous with the application of oil. Chicken burger was cooked according to instructions (10 minutes on one side, 8 on the other) and the cheese slice was placed on top when ~4 minutes remained in order for it to melt. The sliced and open bun was also placed in the oven around the 5 minute (EDIT: 3 minutes remaining) mark to toast. Before eating, BBQ sauce was applied to the lower bun
Results: this is something I eat semi-often, or at least both individually are, even if not always together. You can see from the plate arrangement that I really do regret not just adding this broccoli to saturday's portion lmao. It was a silly amount to eat on it's own. I did include a bit of the stem in order to beef up the portion a little (also I don't mind eating it). The consistency on the cook was... pretty bad though. I had tried to get them to roughly equal sizing, but I did a worse job than usual I'd say. It was difficult as the central florets were just naturally small though, so I'm not sure how much better I could have done. Still edible though. I think the extra oil helped at least
Chicken burger turned out fine - last time I fucked up on the cheese timing but this time I got it right. The only downside is it doesn't matter how little you add or how late you add it, near the end of the eating experience the BBQ sauce will soak through the breading and make it mushy. Which is Not Good as I have a texture thing. I always try to mitigate it as much as I can and it remained edible, but it is still an unfortunate thing that seems to just be a natural consequence of whatever kind of breading is used. But it's better than being bone dry I guess, so it is what it is. There wasn't quite enough room for the bun in the oven (I was using 2 baking trays) so I ended up putting it on the baking tray with the chicken burger, which is why the top is a bit more cooked than would be ideal, but again, not much could be done to prevent that. Still turned out better than last time lmao (last time being the pic that is currently my avatar)
Notes for next time: vegetable sizing inconsistency remains my second largest enemy when it comes to cooking (largest enemy being meat done-ness). I do not know how to solve it at this time