Zucchini Fritters: Tender Pancakes with Coriander

Name: Zucchini Fritters: Tender Pancakes with Coriander
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 30 min
Total time: 50 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: European
Ingredients: Young zucchini 1 kg; Eggs 2; Flour 3-5 tbsp; Vegetable oil 100 ml; Salt, sugar, ground coriander, ground black pepper, baking soda to taste

We were about to make zucchini fritters when a question suddenly came up: what's the difference between fritters and pancakes? As far as I can tell, only the size and the baking soda or yeast that fritters get to make them fluffy.

Both fritters and pancakes are the same kind of food: fried flatcakes made from a runny batter of flour and eggs mixed with water or milk.

Then again, pancakes are often made with baking soda or yeast too. So I think it's fair to call fritters pancakes.

Pancakes may well have been the very first flour dish, and they are traditional in almost every cuisine in the world: Ukrainian mlyntsi, French crêpes, Chinese pancakes, Bulgarian palachinki, English pancakes, Indian dosa, Ethiopian injera and many more.

There are countless recipes for pancakes, crêpes and fritters. Fritters can be made with nothing but flour, or with any vegetable: pumpkin, potato, marrow, zucchini and so on.

Here's the basic idea behind vegetable fritters. Zucchini fritters, for example, are made from young zucchini the usual way: the finely ground vegetables are mixed with flour and egg, seasoned with spices, salt and a little baking soda, and everything is fried in vegetable oil. The same way you can make pumpkin fritters or cabbage fritters, and if you swap the vegetables for cottage cheese, you get syrniki.

It's summer now, and the market is full of fresh vegetables, young zucchini included. The zucchini pancake recipe I'm sharing is simple, and the fritters come out with a very delicate flavor.

Ingredients

4 servings

Young zucchini 1 kg
Eggs 2
Flour 3-5 tbsp
Vegetable oil 100 ml
Salt, sugar, ground coriander, ground black pepper, baking soda to taste

Step-by-step recipe

Zucchini fritters couldn't be simpler.
Use only young zucchini. If the seeds have started to form, you'll feel them in the fritters no matter how you grind the zucchini. Young green zucchini don't need peeling, though you can peel them if you like. Wash the zucchini well and cut away any damaged spots. Trim off the stem end.
Grind the zucchini any way you like. You can grate them finely, blitz them in a blender or simply put them through an ordinary meat grinder. I actually use a meat grinder. First, it's no trouble at all. Second, the result is very even: along with the juice the zucchini release, there are still fairly large bits, about the size of a match head. And third, it's very fast.
Let the liquid drain in a colander or squeeze it out a little
Season the zucchini mixture with salt and pepper to taste. I recommend adding sugar, as it improves the flavor of the fritters. Roughly 1 tbsp of sugar per 1 kg of zucchini. You can add more, too, and then the pancakes will be almost like a dessert. I also recommend ground coriander. Once we added it purely by mistake and loved it. Now coriander always goes into our fritters. So add ground coriander, 1–2 pinches to taste. Be sure to add a pinch of baking soda, just enough to cover the tip of a knife, as they say.
Add the eggs. How many eggs? Nobody knows. What matters is that the eggs hold the zucchini together while frying. I usually add 2 eggs per 1 kg of zucchini, and that's enough.
Mix the mixture very thoroughly until completely smooth. There's probably no need for a mixer here: a wire whisk for eggs and cream mixes it perfectly well.
Next, add flour to the zucchini mixture. It's hard to guess the right amount. With too little flour, the fritters will spread out in the pan. With too much, you'll get a flour pancake with a faint hint of zucchini. So, to start, add three heaped tablespoons of flour per 1 kg of zucchini mixture. Mix thoroughly with the whisk. The flour must blend completely into the zucchini with no lumps. This is important. The finished batter should be a little runnier than zucchini caviar and should only just slide off the spoon. After the first batch, you can add more flour depending on the result. Add a little oil to the pan before each new batch, since the fritters soak it up well.
Pour vegetable oil into a frying pan. The bottom of the pan should be fully covered with a 2–3 mm layer of oil. The fritters need to bubble in the oil.
Spoon the zucchini batter into the hot oil. One tablespoon is just right for one fritter. Leave gaps between the fritters. Turn the heat down to medium-low and fry until golden brown, about 4–5 mins. But be sure to keep an eye on them.
Turn the fritters and fry the other side, also for 4–5 mins, until fully cooked.
As they say, the first pancake is always a flop. Taste the first fritters and adjust the spices and salt. You may need to add more flour.
It's important that the fritters are cooked through in the middle so the zucchini isn't raw.
After frying, you can let the excess oil drain off. Serve the fritters only hot. With sour cream!!!