Courgette Fritters.

The courgettes are growing well in the garden so I thought I would put some of them to use and try out Jamie Oliver’s recipe for these fritters. I was a little apprehensive before I cooked my batter as I didn’t see how the fritters would hold together. However, I needed to have faith in the recipe as they stuck together no problem and could even be flipped over in the pan without falling apart. Don’t get hung up about the shape of your fritters though – it is very unlikely you will get perfectly round bites, unless your courgette matchsticks are very thin indeed. Mine ended up all different shapes and sizes, but still looked beautiful. After all...I think rustic, home made-looking food has a certain charm to it; something that you can’t buy from the supermarkets.

Ingredients

Serves 4

4 large courgettes

1 large free-range egg

1 teaspoon white pepper

1 heaped tablespoon flour, sifted

1 fresh red chilli, deseeded and finely chopped

A bunch of fresh mint, leaves picked and chopped

1 lemon, zested and quartered

A good handful of freshly grated parmesan cheese

Sea salt

Olive oil

½ a teaspoon cumin

Remove the ends from the courgettes and cut them lengthways into quarters. Remove and discard the fluffy white centre from each one with your knife. Then, in no particular way, slice the courgettes up into matchsticks – don’t worry about being precise and perfect, just do the best you can.

Separate the egg and put the white into one bowl and the yolk into another. Add the courgette matchsticks, white pepper, flour, chilli, mint, lemon zest and parmesan to the yolk and mix it up with your hands. You can be rough and scrunch the mixture together quite hard. Whip the egg white up with a pinch of salt until stiff, then carefully fold into the courgette mix.

When it comes to shaping the fritters, feel free to make one large one (1cm/½ inch thick) or get two non-stick pans on the heat to do a batch of smaller ones. Put a couple of glugs of olive oil into each pan and put 5 or 6 little bundles of the mixture into each pan (they’ll resemble mini onion bhajis). Sprinkle over some cumin and cook the fritters on a medium heat. They should need about 2½ minutes on each side to go golden.

If they have been cooked correctly, you will be rewarded with a lovely mixture of golden, crunchy courgette on the outside and soft, fresh courgette in the middle. They are best eaten straight away, served with the lemon quarters. I can guarantee you - they won’t hang around for long!