Fritter and taste

The third weekend in January was very much one that was all about overcoming illness and generally taking it easy. However as the weekend wore on I began to feel a little fitter and on the Sunday evening I felt well enough to make some simple but tasty food in the shape of some sweetcorn fritters.

I first had sweetcorn fritters over Christmas when visiting a Thai takeaway restaurant out of town with some new company. I was impressed by their taste and despite feeling like I was about to fall to sleep at any time I resolved to work hard to make my fritters as tasty and flavoursome as those I had sampled over Christmas. I also wanted to ensure the fritters came out successfully this time round as  I once tried to cook potato fritters at a cookery class as a schoolboy and failed epically on that occasion.

I took a nine ounce can of sweetcorn and drained the water from it using a colander. I then put half of the sweetcorn in a food processor and blended it on a medium setting in the blender. Next I place two ounces of plain flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, a well beaten egg and three tablespoons of soy sauce into the blender and blended the ingredients again on a medium setting.

I added the contents of the blender to a mixing bowl with the rest of the sweetcorn and two teaspoons of ground coriander. I then took a medium-sized frying pan and covered the bottom with olive oil which I then heated lightly. After the oil had reached the right temperature I added three separate pieces of the mixture, each was about three centimetres by three centimetres, and fried them for around five minutes until the underneath had solidified and began to brown.

The key part of preparation was about to follow as I used a wooden spatula to flip the fritters and fry the other side. The test with the turning of the fritters is to make sure the underneath is solid enough that when it comes to be flipped it does not fall apart. After frying the fritters for five minutes on the other side I served them as a starter to my main course of artichoke and tomato frittata.

The fritters were everything they had promised to be and more as the sweetcorn and egg made them substantial without being too filling while the coriander and soy sauce provided a taste as authentic as that to be found at any Thai or Chinese Restaurant.

Golden Brown- these fritters certainly turned out better than those I made at school several years previously

Let the Barley Grow

The penultimate weekend in November saw me make a typical winter soup to match the cooler weather that was now starting to arrive my area. In times gone by Pearl Barley was a staple ingredient of many winter soups made in this country and I decided to honour that tradition by making a soup using this interesting foodstuff.

I peeled, top and tailed and diced two carrots, two white onions and a leek which I proceeded to gently fry in some olive oil in my Le Cresceut dish with six ounces of Pearl Barley and the leaves from five stalks of fresh Thyme. I stirred the ingredients constantly for around fifteen minutes so as to ensure that they did not stick to the bottom of the dish before adding a pint of chicken stock to it and letting the ingredients stew on a medium heat for a further half an hour.

After this I let the dish cool, blended the contents, reheated it and then served it. Despite having no actual meat in,other than an essence of chicken with the stock, the presence of the Thyme and Barley brought back memories of the rich chicken casseroles made by my Grandmother in years gone by. This in turn in my mind pushed the clock back to the tastes and smells of meals produced in the kitchens of Old England.

Chicken Casserole Puree anyone?