Sunday, March 14, 2010

If you have too many grapes...

Patrizia's Grape Fritters from Stephanie Alexander's Kitchen Garden Companion, sensational!  Having masses of grapes ripening on the vine out the back all at the same time I thought it was high time I started experimenting with cooking grapes as I dont have enough to start making home brew just yet.  I've never actually cooked with grapes before as they are so sweet & delicious all on their own that I haven't felt the need up until now.

As pancakes are one of my favourite foods, this recipe immediately caught my eye.  The recipe suggests seedless grapes, mine have seeds so as the batter was resting for its required half an hour, I plopped myself down at the bench while everyone else was sleeping & de pipped the 500g, not such a big deal when you have time to spare & for me these sorts of jobs are always a labour of love anyway so I find them quite relaxing.  As for the cooking, I found it a bit tricky to get the temperature just right, you might be able to see in the photo that the batter isnt quite cooked all of the way through, after the first few when I realised this was happening, I slowed things down a bit, squashed them after flipping & problem solved.  A really sweet Sunday morning brekkie treat without too much added sugar, they didnt even need any syrup or ice cream on the side.

Does anyone else have any great grape recipes for me?

 Patrizia's Grape Fritters

1 1/2 cups self raising flour
2 tablespoons caster sugar, plus extra for dusting
1/4 tspn salt
1 egg
1 cup milk
500g black grapes, preferably seedless, stems removed
grapeseed oil or vegetable oil, for frying

Sift flour, sugar & salt into a large mixing bowl.  Lightly whisk egg with milk.  Make a well in the flour & stir in the egg/milk mixture, then whisk to form a smooth, thickish batter.  Leave to stand for 30 minutes. 

Cut the grapes in half & de-seed if necessary.  Stir through the batter.

Pour oil into a medium sized non stick frypan to a depth of 1cm & heat over medium heat until hot.  test the heat by dropping in a small blob of batter.  It should sizzle as it hits the oil & start to brown at once.  Drop in heaped tablespoons of batter & fry for 1 minute, then turn with an egg lifter.  Press down lightly on each fritter with the egg lifter.  Fry until golden brown on both sides.  Remove & drain on greaseproof paper.  Dust with extra sugar & serve.  Makes about 10.

2 comments:

What's For Tea? said...

What a great idea! Thanks for sharing :)

Anonymous said...

These fritters are delicious - I made ours with red wine grapes, and the smaller fruit size and pips didn't matter a jot. In fact, the pips added good texture, I thought. The juice soaked beautifully into the batter, giving you a shot of flavour as you munched through. I also used this batter to coat figs, zucchini flowers and apple rings - all fabulous, especially dusted with some icing or castor sugar.

This batter recipe comes from Patrizia Simone, chef/owner of the wonderful Simone's in Bright in North East Victoria. She draws on the food of her Umbrian childhood, using local ingredients to great effect. Well worth a visit.