~ Stop Frittering Around & Fry Up A Batch of Fritters ~

Here in Pennsylvania, I grew up eating savory deep-fried corn fritters in July and August, when local sweet corn is in season, and  sweet apple fritters in September and October, when local apples are in season.  I grew up eating potato pancakes as well, which are technically a type of fritter, but, we don't refer to them as such because they are pan-fried.  Doughnuts were/are made on Doughnut Day, and, even though they're deep-fried, we don't call them fritters either. Why? Like their precursor cousin, the beignet, they don't contain any chopped protein, fresh or dried fruits and/or vegetables, and, with or without holes, they're just plain old deep-fried dough.

Fritters are deep-fried.  Fritters contain protein, fruit or veggies.

A bit about fritters:  Defined as small, sweet or savory, deep-fried (not pan fried), dough- or batter-based cakes (fritters contain no bread or bread crumbs) made by combining chopped food (not whole pieces or chunks) with a thick, seasoned batter, dropped into hot oil and deep-fried until crisp on the outside and cooked-through on the inside. Depending on the consistency of the batter, fritters can emerge flat (like pancakes) or round (like golf balls).  Once chopped, almost anything can be made into a fritter:  meat, poultry, fish, seafood, fruits or vegetables.  

Fritters can be served for breakfast, lunch or dinner, as a snack, side-dish, main-course or dessert.  Fritters are sold on street corners and in five-star restaurants where they can be picked up and eaten with the hand or eaten with a fork.  Fritters are the original fast food and pub grub. Fritters are multi-cultural -- you can find a fritter anywhere in the world where they deep-fry food.

You can really use your imagination when it comes to fritter ingredients, but the most important thing is knowing how to properly deep fry food.  Oil that is too cold when food is added will impart an oily, greasy taste, which is undesirable.  Too hot oil can also cause less then perfect fritters or burned ones. Electric deep fryers with controllable temperature settings take all the guesswork out of deep-frying, though for experienced cooks, a simple temperature gauge and a sense of how the oil appears and smells is often enough information to produce perfectly fried food.

Try my recipe for Sweet Deep-Fried & Glazed Apple Fritters:

Or my recipe for Savory Deep-Fried Sweet Corn Fritters:

"We are all in this food world together." ~ Melanie Preschutti

(Recipe, Commentary and Photos courtesy of Melanie's Kitchen/Copyright 2022)

Comments

[KitchenEncounters]

Tom -- While it goes against the technical description, use a cast iron skillet fo fry them if you want them to spread out and flatten a bit. Lot's of folks do.

[Tom]

So how do you get them to be flat vs round? In a deep fryer they naturally form balls.