Zucchini Fritters

Happy 4th of July!!!

I hope everyone is enjoying all the festivities and cooking up some delicious food. While it is too late to make these goodies today, I highly recommend trying them soon! I saw the recipe for these fritters in the most recent Vegetarian Times a few weeks ago and knew immediately I was going to make them. I tested them out last weekend when the girls came for a visit, but then really put in the effort to make them perfect earlier this week. We have a weekly CSA pick up from Fledging Crow Farms from our local farmers market, which means I have to start cutting and cooking right away and lucky for me, scallions, zucchini, peppers and garlic scapes were all part of my pick-up. 

So, first I made a salad by cleaning up the red leaf lettuce, cooked and sliced a couple of beets and then cut up some tomatoes and avocado. The recipe called for a gyros setup, but with all the extra greens I took the route that would help use what was already in my fridge.

These fritters truly take about 20-25 minutes to make total. Probably 15 minutes to put together and 10 to fry up. They are perfect. Once we finished our salad I ended up making the rest of the batter and serving them as an appetizer presentation. Mmm...I think I might just have to make them  tomorrow. 

Zucchini Fritters (inspired and very similar to the recipe found on page 32 in the July/August 2015 Vegetarian Times issue)

INGREDIENTS

  • Medium Zucchini (about 7in long)
  • 1 egg
  • 1 chili pepper, jalapeno or pablano pepper 
  • 5 garlic scapes 
  • 3 scallion stalks, about 1/2 cup chopped
  • 1/2 cup all purpose flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • olive oil

DIRECTIONS

  1. First, set the oven to 350 and place the pepper of choice in the oven to roast
  2. Now, crack an egg (white & yolk) and beat it in a bowl. 
  3. Grate the zucchini, squeeze between your hands the excess juice and place in the bowl with egg. 
  4. Chop up the scallions (remember you are making small pancakes so you want them to blend in and not be large chunks) and add this to the bowl.. 
  5. Mince the scapes and add to the bowl. Side note. You can also use regular garlic, but I just had an abundance of scapes gifted from my friends mom and needed to use them. They add a really nice crunch. Again the key is to make sure they are minced. 
  6. Take the pepper out of the oven (should be slightly charred), wait to cool for a minute and mince. Add to the bowl. 
  7. Mix everything in said bowl. 
  8. Measure out the flour and sift into the bowl. Do the same with the baking powder. Mix until it looks like batter, no dry spots of flour.
  9. Add salt and pepper as per your taste preference. If you have a salt/pepper grinder, crank it 4-6 times. 
  10. In a pan add the oil, enough to lightly coat the pan so when the pancakes are placed they do not hit a dry spot that will cause the pancake to stick to the pan. Set the electric burner to medium heat or if it is gas, set to 4. 
  11. Place an ice cream scoop size of batter onto the pan. Flatten out a bit, but not two thin. Should be about 1/2 inch thick. 
  12. Cook 2-3 minutes and then flip until golden brown on both sides. If it is light, doesn't hurt to keep it on. 
  13. You should make about 12 mini pancakes.

As you can see we added these as a topping to our salad and stacked them.  

Additional condiment items we added, but you can always make your own: avocado crema (Andrew made it for a pasta dish earlier in the week), hummus, balsamic vinaigrette, goat cheese. 

ENJOY!!!