Ricotta Fritters
This recipe has been lurking at the edge of my consciousness for quite a while. Ricotta fritters = fried cheese??? Well that can’t be very good for you, right?
But, OK Marcella, I’ll give it a go.
Simple ingredients, as has been common with almost all of these recipes – flour, salt, eggs, honey, lemon peel, butter, vegetable oil – only had to pick up some ricotta cheese at the store.
All of the ingredients, except for the oil and honey, are mixed into a batter and set aside for between 2 and 3.5 hours…..
…. then fried in very hot oil in dollops of 1 tablespoon. The fritters puff up after a short time cooking on both sides and are then removed to a cooling rack to drain …..
….. then put on a plate, dribbled with honey and served when still very warm.
What I liked about this recipe:
This was a new experience for me – never made fritters before – although it’s a lot like making doughnuts, only simpler.
What I didn’t like about this recipe:
No problems, except I wasn’t thrilled with cooking with such hot oil to make a dessert at the end of a meal.
Would I make it again?
Well, I’ve thought about that quite a bit. It’s likely not a dessert I will prepare on a hot evening in July, but I can envisage making it to impress some dinner guests mid-winter. And before I do that, I will experiment with preparing the fritters earlier and reheating just before serving. So, yes, I’ll probably make it again. The novelty value, at least chex Doug, makes it a winner.
You may be too Anglo-Saxon, Doug, to understand frying. In Naples, where they know more about good cooking than most English people do, they say frienno magnanno, which means fry it and eat it. Reheating fried food is a terrible idea. Would you eat reheated French fries? I have made ricotta fritters for a class of 24, and not one of them had to eat a cold or reheated fritter.
Of course you’re right, Marcella. Re-frying is almost certainly not a good idea. I was just trying to figure out a way of making these ahead of time – didn’t care for standing over a stove using hot oil to make dessert.
But I do take exception to you casting dispersions on my assumed heritage.
I am sorry if you took offense. No offense was meant. I wasn’t casting aspersions. I don’t think one understands food if one ignores its ethnic context. Whatever your own heritage may be, in the comments you have made throughout this project you demonstrate an affinity for the ethnic approach to food of a country that puts the Queen of England on its coins and postage stamps. As it happens, I am very fond of the English, I have traveled to England many times, I enjoyed eating in England, certainly more than I do in Sarasota, Florida, and the chef I most admire in the world is very British, Fergus Henderson. But when it comes to frying, or standing at the stove to make dessert, I am more in tune with Neapolitan or French cooks. Have you never had or made crêpes suzette? Not reheated, I trust.
Marcella,
Postage stamps!!!
Your comments have indicated an affinity for inflexibility.
Doug, you are absolutely right! I am completely inflexible when it comes to how I think food should taste.