zucchini fritters

I’m usually not one to fry. Mostly for the same reasons as everyone else: too messy, too much oil, too much bother. But lately, with more time on my hands I’m happy to bring out the oil. Last week I made fried sage leaves on a whim since we have so much sage. Instead, this week’s zucchini fritters came about because of a surplus of ricotta. While we bought the ricotta originally to make this cake and this pasta, somehow that never happened. What did happen was an impending ‘eat by’ date on the ricotta and a half dozen zucchini that needed cooking.

After a lot of research I finally settled on this recipe, from Ottolenghi. Although of course, it being an Ottolenghi recipe, my Umbria-based location meant that I didn’t have many of the ingredients. But I made do. While he called for manouri cheese (I don’t even know what that is!), my ricotta worked perfectly. And no ground coriander meant I just added more fresh herbs. In fact his recipe didn’t call for any fresh herbs at all, but I ended up making them one of the main features. And of course, there is no such thing as self rising flour in Italy.

I rounded it out to a meal by making Roti, a flat bread recipe that my sister sent me the link to at the beginning of this lockdown and which is now on regular rotation. The only change I make to this recipe is to substitute a half cup of whole wheat flour for all-purpose.

I also made two salads which also show up regularly at our house:

Green Salad: I really feel like I need to do a whole post and/or video about making a salad. Here are a couple of tips:
-Thinly slice one small red onion or shallot and let soak in a bit of vinegar and half teaspoon of salt for 20 minutes. Add the marinated onion and infused vinegar to the salad.
-Fresh herbs: I ALWAYS add a bit of fresh herbs to any green salad. Even if all you have is parsley, it makes a huge difference. My favorite are fresh chives, but lately I’ve fallen in love with fresh marjoram.

Greek Salad: This is another salad which will turn the sorriest cucumbers and tomatoes into a side that goes with everything. Chop the cucumbers and tomatoes into chunks. Add a sliced red onion, and toss with olive oil, salt and pepper and very little red wine vinegar. Add a sprinkling of dried oregano. Stir and serve. Make sure you prepare at the last minute, or it will get soggy. If you have a green bell pepper that’s good too.

I also made two sauces for the fritters:

Sour Cream and Lime:
This one was from Ottolenghi and it is simply sour cream, lime zest and juice and a bit of ground cumin and coriander. I added a half cup of chopped fresh dill.

Tahini Sauce: Thin out a 1/3 cup of tahini with about 3 tablespoons of water. Add fresh lemon juice, a teaspoon of garlic red pepper sauce and a bit of tomato paste. Chopped chives too. Keep tasting it and adjust. I ended up adding a bit of soy sauce and fish sauce too.

If you don’t have any zucchini this recipe will work well with carrots or even grated squash. And if you don’t have ricotta? I guess you could use Manouri (whatever that is) . (actually it’s kind of like feta which sounds really good to me!)