Fritters, who doesn’t like them!? Summer is a perfect time for them as there are so many seasonal ingredients that make awesome fritters. Today, I combined two of the summer greatest hits in a single fritter: courgette (also known as zucchini) and sweetcorn. I love them both, separately and together so I figured why not. Plus, every year I get emails from my readers asking what to do with surplus zucchini so I was happy to oblige.
If would rather not mess around with squeezing liquid out of zucchini (I know, I know, it is a bit of a pain) and are a massive corn addict, I have got you! I have two corn fritter recipes on this site already – one for Thai inspired corn fritters here and another for corn fritters with a touch of Indian spices. If you would rather just have zucchini fritters, try these Greek inspired ones or my Greek tomato fritters instead – both inspired by us living on a Greek island for a few years. Right, so today’s fritters are really really simple and not difficult to make. The only thing that isn’t anyone’s idea of fun is having to extract excess liquid out of courgettes / zucchini, but trust me, it is a must!!! Zucchini is notorious for holding on to lots of moisture and while this can work to your advantage when you make a deliciously moist zucchini cake, for example, you really want to banish almost all of that extra liquid when making fritters or else they will end up soggy! The second thing I like to do is to chop or process half of the corn kernels quite finely to help the fritters stick together. Corn kernels provide delicious pops of sweetness and texture but they also sabotage these fritters a little by trying to break free from them. It’s not their fault, they are quite independent you see! So to make sure they keep in line, I like to mince half of them finely so that they become part of the batter and the fritters don’t disintegrate as easily.
Grate the courgettes / zucchini quite coarsely, salt them and set aside for the salt to extract excess moisture. Squeeze the moisture out into the bowl underneath, be through, courgettes are surprisingly watery.
Chop half of the corn kernels finely – you could also mince them with thickened flax in a mini food processor – so that they become part of the batter and the fritters hold together better. Mix all the ingredients in a bowl, mix well and then chill for a few hours.
Once chilled, the mixture should stick together well, it should not be too dry or too wet (see photo on the left). Fry a heaped tablespoon of batter per fritter until cooked through and browned on both sides.
