That's what anyone who has known me for longer than three years would say if they heard I ate an entire meal that consisted entirely of vegetables. The me from three years ago would be scoffing at me. That was the me that was enamored with Doritos after working a 12 hour shift dispatching, and putting away a microwave pizza before bed without thinking twice about the repercussions. I guess maybe hitting my mid-twenties was sort of a wake up call that my body won't love me forever.
My husband has expressed a fondness for zucchini. We started by slicing it and pan-frying it in a bit of butter, then branched to zucchini fries baked in the oven and now we are taking it to a new dangerous level: zucchini fritters. I was honestly never a huge fan of zucchini, not going to lie. The only way I would ingest it was in the form of zucchini bread, which i'm sure eliminates any of the "good" value of the vegetable. Making these reminded me a bit of when I used to make latkes with my mother growing up, and maybe it made me enjoy them just a little more.
I Can't Believe it's Zucchini Fritters
Slight adaption from the amazing Smitten Kitchen.
Serves two
Calorie estimate for the entire recipe falls at 363, without counting the oil it is cooked in. It's hard to say how much is absorbed, but I would go ahead and just add 40 or so calories, leaving you at roughly 200 calories per serving!
1 pound of zucchini (I used three normal sized zucchini and this worked well.)
1 1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, beaten
A few dashes of ground pepper
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tablespoons olive oil
Optional:
Low fat sour cream
When I first started to make this recipe, I realized I forgot to buy one of the ingredients from the grocery store. I am convinced I would forget my head someplace if it weren't attached. Regardless, I trudged on, determined that the missing scallions wouldn't be missed too much. Start by chopping the ends of your zucchini off. Next you are going to take out your food processor. If you do not have one, you can just use a normal hand grater and grate your zucchini. If you are using the food processor, you are going to want to use the shredding blade. For my processor, it comes with a disc and one side is shred, the other is slice. Make sure you set it up properly, because this determines the consistency of your fritters.
After you have pushed all of your zucchini through the food processor, you will have something like this. Add 1 teaspoon of salt to your heap of zucchini, toss and allow it to rest for ten minutes. While you are waiting, you can go ahead and mix your 1/2 cup flour and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder together in a small bowl. Set aside. Once the ten minutes have passed, now you will work on draining the moisture from the zucchini. I suggest using a strainer, then pushing down on the zucchini with a wooden spoon. There is a lot of water trapped in there, so don't skip this! If you don't do this properly, your fritters will get soggy. I found that placing the zucchini into a heavy duty paper towel and wringing it worked really well.
After you remove all of the liquid, you should be left with something like this. You might want to add a little more salt to it for taste, since some was lost when you were wringing out the zucchini. 1/4 teaspoon did the trick for my batch. Add a couple dashes of pepper, and your beaten egg. Mix well. Now add your flour and baking powder mixture. Mix until well combined.
To cook these, I broke out my beautiful cast iron skillet. If you don't have one, you can just use a normal large skillet. Add your olive oil to the pan and heat it to medium high. I kept my skillet at medium simply because for some reason my cast iron heats up more than my other skillets do. Begin to pre-heat your oven to 200f. Once your oil is hot and bubbly, you can form small patties with either your hands like I did, or drop it down into the pan by the spoonful and flatten them with your spatula. Cook on each side until they are golden brown, or about three minutes. When they are done cooking, place them onto a cookie sheet covered with foil. Go ahead and stick your sheet with the fritters into the oven. You can add the other fritters into the oven as you cook. I set the timer for ten minutes from when I put in the first batch of fritters, and they came out fantastic.
When you are done, you can add anything your heart desires to the fritters. I topped mine with a teaspoon of low fat sour cream. The me from three years ago is in awe at how great these are. Look at what i've been missing! Enjoy!
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