Tuesday 16 September 2008

Courgettes and courgette fritters

I finally, finally got a few courgettes last week. Three, to be exact, hardly a good haul from three plants, not least when there are books with titles such as 'What Will I Do With All Those Courgettes'. Still, three was better than the 'none' I was expecting at various points through the summer, given that not a single female flower formed until August (due to the cold and wet), and then most of them subsequently turned yellow and fell off (due to the cold and wet), a tendency that continues to this day. Clearly this 'Verde di Milano 'variety, chosen for its suitability for pot growing, is not a huge fan of the English summer, however much it might like restricted space. I think I'll be searching for a replacement next year, so any suggestions of a small-ish courgette that can also deal with a bit of adverse weather would be very welcome.

Anyway, back to my three courgettes. There I was, admiring them on a daily basis, when suddenly I realised that one in particular was threatening to turn into a marrow, as is their wont, and suddenly we were having courgettes for dinner. We had been eating a fair number of courgettes and so I was quite keen to try something new. A quick rummage in the recipe books later and I had dug a recipe for courgette fritters, which was such a success that I thought I would share it with you lucky people who have managed a small glut this year. We ate the fritters as a side dish with borscht and freshly made bread, but I imagine they could be placed on any number of menus.

You need:
- 2-3 courgettes
- 50g freshly grated parmesan
- 2 eggs, beaten
- 6-8 tsp unbleached flour (the recipe wanted 4, which turned out to be woefully little, so keep adding slowly until the right consistency is reached)
- veg oil for frying
- salt and pepper

Grate the courgettes and squeeze them in cloth or kitchen roll to reduce excess water. Then quite simply combine them with all the other ingredients, shape to a desired size and fry until cooked. The recipe suggested eating them with chili jam, which I suspect would offset the fried-eggy flavours nicely, as would any other chutney-of-choice.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I thought that these were going to be the flower fritters for a moment. I've never thought of cooking courgettes in this way. And, as luck would have it, I've got all these ingredients right now. So that's dinner sorted.

Anonymous said...

Or cut into quarters lengthways, place skin-side down on a lightly oiled baking tray, scatter with chopped chilli and mint, drizzle with olive oil, and bake hot until just carmelizing. Yumptious.

Anonymous said...

Well, I made them. They were easy (as you said), but they weren't as good as I expected them to be. Maybe I didn't squeeze the water out enough, but I needed even more flour than you did which resulted in that being the major flavour. I'll do them again, because they were promising, but with only one egg next time.
How about putting a little salt over them (like you do with an aubergine) and let them stand for a bit before squeezing them? That might work.