Sunday 2 October 2011

Curried Carrot, Zucchini and Almond Feta Fritters

With homemade ketchup! 
(But I can't share the recipe yet as it needs tweaking, but was still very good)

This recipe is based on one in a quite old vegetarian cookbook I've had for years. I made them once before back when we were vegetarian and absolutely loved them. It's one of those flavour combinations I never would have thought up - curry with feta and poppy seeds?? It's odd but they were so, so good! I haven't' thought about having a go with them again since being vegan as they had egg and feta cheese, but since discovering that almond feta I have been on a quest to veganize them.

It's taken a few go's to be fair but I have finally gotten there. The problem was getting them to hold together and not stick to the pan whilst cooking, which I recall even being an issue with the egg based version. I got around it all but draining the grated carrot and zucchini well so they are not so wet, and crucially, taking the idea from my veganized Gardenburger post, oven baking the fritters first till they dry out and can hold their shape then frying until crisp and golden brown. Worked perfectly, even if that first flip out of the oven can be a little precarious!


Curried Carrot, Zucchini and Almond Feta Fritters: makes 6


150g carrot
150g zucchini
50g onion
50g almond feta
15g flour + 1 Tbsp cornstarch
1/8 tsp cumin seeds
1/4 tsp poppy seeds
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 Tbsp cornstarch + 1 Tbsp water
freshly ground black pepper
fresh parsley - optional, I forgot to add!
1 Tbsp vegan butter - to fry
1 Tbsp olive oil - to fry

First grate the carrot, zucchini and onion together in a food processor or with a hand grater.


Now, switch to the chopping blade and pulse the mixture about 10 times until chopped up but not pureed:


Tip this mixture into a seive and press with a spatula to get out as much moisture as you can. When fairly dry tip it into a large bowl and add the flour, cornstarch, spices, salt, pepper and seeds:


Now crumble in the feta and stir well until no lumps of feta remain and it's quite creamy:


Preheat the oven to 200C and line a baking sheet with baking paper. Using a 1/4 cup scoop measure out the mixture and spoon out onto the baking sheets then press them down with a fork into a fritter:


The mixture will be very wet so don't worry about that :-) Now pop them in the oven for 15 minutes, flip them over then bake for another 15 minutes. I did say above that the first flip can be a bit precarious. I found it easiest to use a very thin flipper and to quickly slide it under the fritter to flip. If they break apart just push them back together as the second bake will hold them together.

After the second bake, they should hold together so you can pick them up at this stage.

Now heat up the vegan butter and olive oil in a large frying pan until melted and add the fritters. Simply fry until golden brown on both sides:


Drain on paper towels then they are ready to serve. We loved these with my homemade ketchup (recipe to come once I tweak it!) or just store bought ketchup, a hot sauce of some sort would work nice as well.



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2 comments:

  1. The fritters look fantastic, thanks for sharing your recipe! And I really need to make that almond feta too, I keep meaning to try these baked nut cheeses but I still haven't.

    ReplyDelete
  2. that looks great!! yummm

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