I have been trying since Sunday afternoon to sit down and write,the phone has rang,the door bell too and five million other little moments that have kept me away from here. So let me back track a few days and get caught up.In fact I'll back up to last Saturday.
As I wrote last week the family and I went to help move The Urban Farm Store to their new store front.The high light of the day was any homesteader's wildest dream, an entire pallet and a half of CANNING JARS and LIDS! Oh my! We filled the whole back of Chance's Land Cruiser.Two thoughts went through my mind, first one, quick, lets just make a get away! No we would not do that but man o man what a temptation.The second,Dang it! No camera what a great photo that would have been. Everything else was that stuff at the end of any move,the random bits,the things that are too big to load with anything else. We had a good time visiting with the Urban Farm folks,a given in our books.
That was Saturday on Sunday Chance awoke wanting something yummy for breakfast.The daily bread was still rising and so was Chance's hunger meter,what to make? I remembered I had been wanting to make a Fritter recipe I had not done in a VERY long time.So long that it was B.C - Before Children days.
The last time I made these we were camping with friends.We had picked some early Huckleberries that were not enough to just eat so I made them into Huckleberry Fritters.
Sunday I did not have Huckleberries but I did have some apples that needed to be used up. Of course I tinkered the recipe a bit.The book said to slice the Apples,then dip them individually in the batter to fry.Well that seemed like more twiddling around than I wanted to do.So instead I chopped the apples to mix into the batter.I also added a teaspoon each of cinnamon and nutmeg because the batter needed a boost. Apples sometimes need something to bring up their flavor in my mind. The final change I made was I rolled the fried fritters in cinnamon sugar.
I am sharing the recipe with all of you and it will be below.I like this batter,it is light and kind of egg-y like Beignets ( with out the work or the waiting.). It is also not sweet which means you can use it even for a savory type of Fritter.Another plus to me is it dose not use yeast,instant gratification.
Plain Fritters- From: The Betty Furness Westinghouse Cookbook (an oldie but goodie!)
1 Cup Flour
1/2 teaspoon Salt
1 teaspoon Baking Powder
2 Eggs beaten
1 Tablespoon Veg.Oil (or whatever you have) Plus more for frying
1/2 Cup Milk or Water
Stir together all the dry ingredients,then add the wet ones,mix it up till there are no lumps. The batter should come out a lot like pancake batter.
Now you can get creative. Like I said I chopped up my apples but the book says to dip slices of apple in the batter then fry. The book also talks about using other fruits as well as clams or leaving the fritters plain. (why?when you can add something yummy.) If you choose to use canned fruit you will need to drain all of the juices from the fruit.
Ok once you have chosen wither to add something or not mix it all in the batter until your addition is well coated.
In a frying pan you will need to heat about 2 inches of oil. The book gives no temp for this and I did not use my electric frying pan so I'd guess around 250-300 degrees .Or until when you drop a bit of batter in it sizzles.
Once your oil is ready scoop enough of the batter to give you the size you may want. Place scooped batter into hot oil. The batter dose not spread like pancake batter but will rise and puff up.I made mine so they were about 3-4 inches across.
For once this cookbook is a bit lacking in directions esp about the frying part of the fritters. I fried them on the first side down until I could see golden brown edges starting to form. I then turned them over.I checked the bottom often and turned the fritter again once the bottom side was golden. The book did say the fritters take 3-5 minutes to cook and it did. I would just treat the frying of these like you were making a thick pancake and you'll do just fine. I turned the fritter more than once on each side before they were cooked through.
Tomorrow Chance and I will process our Sour Kraut that has been pickling away for the past 6 weeks. Besides writing, the processing of the Kraut has been put off a couple of times this week too. Our book said the kraut could sit for up to 8 weeks so even if tomorrow follows this weeks trend of side tracking anything I have planned I am covered for another 11 days.
That's it for now. Please leave me a comment if my directions seem off to you. Like I said the book was not helpful so I winged it and passed my wings on to you.
Rois
No comments:
Post a Comment