Heavenly Zucchini Fritters

Last night we took inventory of what we had left from last-week's share. At the top of the list: zucchini. I'd meant to give a couple to my mom, but forgot, so it was time for another zucchini experiment!

I had photocopied a recipe for zucchini fritters (or pancakes) from Laurie Colwin's Home Cooking. I can't say it enough: I love the Laurie Colwin books about cooking. This recipe is from a chapter called How to Disguise Vegetables. Does it get any better than that?

Shred the zucchini--use four small ones--and drain it on a towel. Separate two eggs and beat the whites until fairly stiff. Add half a cup of milk to the egg yolk, beat and add about half to three-quarters of a cup of flour--the batter should be a little thicker than pancake batter. Add the zucchini, salt, pepper and some chopped scallion. Fold in the egg whites and fry in clarified butter (or unclarified butter) or olive oil until golden on both sides.

I handed off the recipe to Gerry and told him to call me when he had something interesting for me to photograph. When he called, this is what he'd whipped up:

And I do mean whipped up. The recipe has you beat the egg whites, so the batter is this amazing, fluffy consistancy. This was looking promising!

One thing Ger said he'd do differently next time is use less oil. By the time he got to the end of the batter, there was much less oil in the pan, and the fritters cooked up just fine.

These smell absolutely wonderful when they're cooking. Like drool-worthy wonderful.

And they taste as good as they look. Gerry had ketchup with his, and I (of course) passed on that and had mine plain. We both give this recipe an A+. We will be making these again...and again...and again...once we finish the first batch. The recipe as written makes a dozen good-sized fritters, but they reheat nicely in a dry pan on top of the stove. Try them!