Anything that has instructions to dip and fry is probably not going to be good for you. But what the hell. Today's Wednesday and I have a whole garden of vegetables growing that I'll eventually eat and sometimes I wear outfits that make me look like I'm about to go for a run and melted oil or animal fat is my favourite marinade for just about anything. So.
Dipping and frying it is!
Let's break it down.
What's a fritter?
A fritter is anything battered and fried. You could have zucchini fritters, clam fritters or apple fritters. The fritter is the batter, the guts are the type of fritter it is.
With enough rhubarb growing in my side yard to build a log cabin out of (only it would be a rhubarb cabin, duh) someone suggested I try making rhubarb fritters. O.K. I'll do just that I said. And I did.
I'm remarkably suggestible when it comes to food.
But here's the thing. If you're gonna make rhubarb fritters and the batter is good for ANY fritters why stop at rhubarb? Why not keep frittering?
Enter the apple. Within moments I was also frittering apple rings.
Crispy on the outside, doughnutty on the inside, with a coating of sprinkled sugar and cinnamon. I like these because as far as desserts go it's NOT too sweet. I mean it's just an apple. Basically you're having a piece of fruit for dessert which is highly recommended by anyone with any common sense at all.
For the rhubarb I did two types of fritters. Round balls of small diced rhubarb (which look like little monsters when they're cooked) and finger lengths of rhubarb dipped in the batter.
The rhubarb fingers are super-tart in the centre from the rhubarb and super-sweet on the outside from the generous sugar coating. I'm into it.
The Rhubarb Monster Fritters have a greater batter to rhubarb ratio so they don't taste quite as tart.
BUT, if your idea of dessert doesn't involve something that makes your face pucker up like a baby tasting lemon for the first time then stay away from the rhubarb portion of this recipe and move directly to the apple rings. By the way, how awesome and evil is it that no matter how kind we are in any other situation, we ALL love to watch an unsuspecting baby taste lemon.
FRITTER BATTER
Ingredients
- 1 cup flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 egg
- 1 cup of milk
- ½ cup sugar
- ¼ teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Combine dry ingredients.
- Whisk milk and egg together.
- Make well in bottom of flour mixture and whisk in egg and milk mixture.
- Depending on the humidity and your location you may need to add more milk to your mixture. But the batter needs to be thick to coat whatever you're cooking. The right consistency is thicker than pancake batter.
- Prep your ingredients (slice apple into ¼" slices for apple rings, cut rhubarb into finger lengths for fritter fingers )
- Dip your fruit, vegetable or fish into the batter and shake off as much excess as you can.
- Fry in vegetable oil at 375 until golden making sure to turn so all sides are browned. (for fruits this is around 3 minutes total fry time)
- Quickly drain fritter then drop in sugar and cinnamon, coating all sides well. Obviously omit the sugar and cinnamon step if you're doing vegetables or fish.
- *To make the fritter monsters, dice fruit into ¼" pieces and mix with the batter and drop by a tablespoon into the hot oil. You should have equal amounts of fruit and batter in your mixture.
I'm going to warn you ONE more time that the rhubarb fingers are TART and unless you love the actual taste of rhubarb you aren't going to like them, so just go with the apple rings. K? Also it's very important to shake off as much batter as possible otherwise the fritters will be too doughy and whatever's on the inside won't cook.
Come to think of it now that you have the deep fryer out why not just nix ALL of this and do what God intended for you to do with a deep fryer. Make french fries.
I made rhubarb sauce earlier today and I just came in with several cups of dandlion blossoms and want to try frittering them. Growing up, apple fritters with maple syrup were a regular Sunday night supper. I'm hoping to find a spice that will bring out the dandelion flower flavor. Any ideas?
I have NO idea, lol. But you know who might? Gayla from http://yougrowgirl.com/ ~ karen!
This looks delicious, just wow! I will try it over the weekend!
for some reason deep fried broccoli is sounding like the most delicious thing imaginable to me right now, steamed first of course
Thanks for the drive to shake my from the hole I dug myself and almost stayed hidden in.
Good to see you peeping out. We're here because we enjoy Karen.
Karen your pictures are just wonderful - perfect photography. I stayed at a hotel in FL when I was little called the Wedgewood Inn in St. Petersburg. They placed a basket of fried corn fritters on every table just to keep you happy while you waited. They were rolled in powdered sugar and tasted heavenly. I think they used creamed corn instead of whole corn. Your pictures reminded me of the experience of being little, hungry, and told to sit and be quiet - then a big basket of golden fritters was placed in front of me and even my two younger brothers sat quietly eating - then giggling and poking each other with white sugar coated fingers when my father wasn't looking - but fingerprints gave them away.
I'd have to start with apples. But what I'm really interested in is the lard. I hope you do look into it. Along the way the info on how crisco came to be and changed our cooking world is a shocker. Fritter batter awesome.
Okay, I have to show you all something...I was 12 years old when this happened: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgiHQadVo-A
It was so fun to be there behind the scenes in our tiny 3-bedroom house. 6 of us were allowed to stay home from school to watch - we all went back to school the next day, probably because we were not quiet enough for a long enough time for their patience! This really happened - they flew out from "New York City!", because my mom couldn't fly there as they wanted her to do, with 7 kids at home. She farmed out the littlest to Grandma, and this was the highlight of several years! We didn't have television, so it is only recently that a nephew found this and posted it and I got to see it! My momma was so pretty, and it is so amazing to hear her voice again! (She died in 1998). Thanks for the jogging of great memories!
What a wonderful gift to hear your mom's voice again!
That's an amazing bit of video to have! Thanks for sharing.
I think I will stay away from rhubarb fritters, for the obvious reasons, although when you mentioned the tartness I started to drool like a Pavlov's dog. Plus, I only have avocado oil and at $27 a bottle, I think it's too expensive to 'fritter away' on fritters.
Instead, I clicked on the rhubarb tart post suggestion that showed up below this post and it reminded me that I made one a while that was unbelievably good and of course I never wrote down the recipe. I think it came from the Smitten Kitchen or some such site, and this is how it turned out:
God, I can't believe I made it 3 years ago. Better do another one.
I have this love relationship with my rhubarb - I have one piece (there were mutliple ones when I bought the house but I thought I didn't need them and I pulled them out) and it's enormous. I love it because it blocks a corner through which you can see into the yard of the people that backup on my neighbour's lot (nothing will grow there because there is an old fir tree that blocks rain and sun and the rhubarb situated conveniently a bit in front of it obstructs the empty spot. So for that reason I use my rhubarb mostly for decorative reasons and I also let it bloom (I know all you avid veggie gardeners have your hair standing up in horror).
apple fritters at Christie! the best treat! I'd try it at home, but that would take the joy out of having those delicious morsels twice a year at Christie.
Not to br a killjoy, but would Splenda do for the sugar? We are dealing with mega sugar issues in this house right now. Have not experimented w sugar sub so much yet. Thanks for any advice!
The sugar doesn't go into the batter but gets sprinkled into the hot fritter after it comes out of the fryer. So...I dunno? Whatever you want to coat your fritter with, I suppose!
I think Splenda would be fine for the topping -- its texture might be a little different, but still good.
As long as it sticks (I think there's a better substitute for sugar than Splenda, but I can't remember what it is!) and has the same sweetness ratio as sugar it should work. ~ karen
powdered stevia might do. My stepdaughter gets little packages from Starbucks
I don't see why not. I love Splenda sprinkled on my strawberries!
I miss my mum she al made thin pancakes rolled up with lemon juice and sugar. Only met the other kind when I came to Canada.
My mom used to make zucchini flower fritters when I was a kid. You have to pick the flowers early in the morning when they are still closed. They were yummy!
I always picked them open; more area to cover with batter that way!
We used to do dandelions, pick the flowers, rinse well, let them dry and mix them into the fritter batter. Yummmm Now we have a dog so there's no safe place to pick them.
We do that, and elderflowers too (clearly inheriting my mother's frittering tendencies...) If I'm feeling fancy I whisk the egg whites and fold them in and add a drop of orange flower water.
When I was a kid we used to make pogos at home, and use the leftover batter to fry anything else in the kitchen while the oil was hot. Canned peaches were one of my most favourites.
I never gave lemons to my babies, but every one of them got a stick of rhubarb to chew on at some point. Same face.
What are pogos? I'm sure you aren't talking about the sticks we used to try to bounce on when I was a kid!
Corn dogs (Brand name for hot dogs on a stick in batter).
Canned peaches are really good in pancakes too!
You want us to fry fish in the batter with cinnamon and sugar? Oh. Reading all of the instructions says to omit that sometimes. Hmm. But what if I really wanted to use it? Hmm, uh, someone braver than me should do it!
I've heard that frying large chunks of potato in oil that was used for fish will 'clean' the oil. I have used the solid Crisco for fish and pour the cooled stuff back into a fish labeled container for next time keeping it for only fish.
The potato as a flavor cleaner does kinda work but take into consideration that the flavor of the actual potato might replace whatever other flavor you were trying to get rid of in the first place
My mouth is watering...
Absolutely delicious - I made the apple fritter. Well...3 of them :)
You made them? Already??? At 2 in the morning, lol? ~ karen!
I'm a British child of the 1970's so my mum could (and did) fritter anything; apples, pineapple, bananas, sweetcorn, corned beef, spam...
Her mix was just a basic (thick) pancake mix (and her pancakes were the same. Nice, but we used to hope that dad would be at home on Shrove Tuesday because he did big crepe-style pancakes) and she shallow fried them.
Actually, sweetcorn fritters are really good- I add chopped chilli now and serve with a salad, or my children eat them with sweet chilli sauce.
Me too :)
Corn happens to be really good in pancakes too!
I have purchased and then given away at least two maybe three FryDaddys. There was a FryGranddaddy in there somewhere, too! I keep being ashamed that I want to fry everything and so I donate them, but I am tempted to try one again! I would eat all the fried things there were in the world, given the chance! One thing that always stymied me was - how do you keep from having to use all the oil in the world? How does it store? What is the best way to store it for reuse? Should you reuse it? Oh, there is a post if ever I heard one! I'm thinking the chopped rubarb in the ball might be nice - the fried rubarb stark fritter just makes my mouth water and my jaw kind of hurt thinking about it!
I always strained the oil and refrigerated it until I needed it again.
Hi Patty! I use liquid Vegetable oil in my fryer and rarely change it. I'd like to switch my fryer over to lard but don't know how that will store so I need to research it. I'll let you know. :) ~ karen!
just put in the fridge. lasts a long time and keeps well
thanks for asking the 'what do you do with the oil' question. My mom used to use Crisco and would let it reset in the fryer between fryings, but I suspect there is probably a better way. It is one of the reasons I have never used my deep fryer - I don't know the oil protocol. I also don't eat pork so lard is out. ... Please please Karen - do a post on what to do with fryer oil! (and how each kind of oil behaves and should be treated afterwards)
Teri - watch this...https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgiHQadVo-A this is my mom and two of my sisters.
TusconPatty, that was wonderful! thank you for sharing. Karen should make an updated version, after she does our research for us! LOL
how come you have the SAME photo twice, Karen? You keep telling us the fritter fingers are TART, then you tempt us with two identical photos... ARGH, it is almost too dark outside right now and really too late to eat yummy deepfried doughy things, but I am SO tempted to brave the blackberries that are hiding in my rhubarb patch.
By the way, a friend brought a delicious salad to a potluck last week - including chopped roasted maple-syrup rhubarb as one of the toppings. it was DELISH and such a surprising taste combo. she used lettuce but said the original recipe used Arugula and fennel (she used pecans and [blech] goat cheese, i had to pick out the goat cheese, but everything else was yummy) Some kind of balsamic dressing as well. How's THAT for a vague recipe?
However, I know you, Karen - you will take that roasted maple-syrup rhubarb idea and go to town!
I used the same photo twice because I'm a numskull. I had two versions of the same photo, with slightly different exposures and forgot to get rid of the one, once I decided on a favourite. All fixed now! ~ karen
So, basically it IS like pancake batter, so why not just use pancake batter? I use the pre-fab, just-add-water, Krustez mix. It's good and I rarely eat a pancake and when I do, it's just one so making up a whole batch is absurd. Can anyone think of a reason not to use mix? Otherwise I'll try it tomorrow!
That's a great idea! I actually want to make broccoli fritters for my kid. It's one way of getting kids to eat veggies. But I just can't seem to get around to making up the batter. So please let us know how your experiment goes!
You can give it a shot. I'm not really sure what boxed pancake batter ingredients are. My worry would just be that they don't get crispy on the outside. But sure, try it! ~ karen
I think you might do pretty well, but you need to check the liquid-to-mix ratio. Also warning: it might fall apart a tiny bit more easily (because we like TENDER pancakes) but adding an extra half egg should tighten it up.
FYI, I had some Krusteaz mix once that when I opened it was full of bugs. When I complained, they sent me a lovely form letter explaining why it was my fault for not having eaten the mix immediately after buying because legally, the USDA allows them to have XX number bug parts per million in their mixes. Imagine what a treasure that letter was...
I've never deep fried anything but there's always a first time!
THIS may be the time. ;) Although I'd go with the apples. Greater chance of you liking them. ~ karen!