We’re at the end of our glorious corn crop and today I harvested that last few teensy cobs with one half full and about 8 kernels each on the other side. I decided that lovely corn fritters with a bit of onion and a dash of cumin would be good for lunch. John thought it would be good too.
Do you send instant messages through your computer to your husband or partner in the next room? We do it all the time.
John is a programmer and when he’s got 15 strings in his head of – if this happens do this and if that happens do that so to keep him from having to start all over, I send computer messages. For John it’s like someone’s counting to 100 and when they get to 48 you say, “24, 25, 26, 37, 41, 16…” Then there are bad words emitted from that room next door followed by the biggest sigh you can imagine.
Me: “John, I know you’re really busy but would you do me a big favor that will take you 10 minutes? I’ve been cleaning the bbq and I’d need to take a shower before I could leave the house”
Him: 🙂
Me: “Was that a yes?”
Him: “Yes”
Me: “Go buy a mango so we can have some salsa with our corn fritters?”
Him: “Yes, dear.”
He left and I dashed to the kitchen and whipped up the fritter batter, went outside and got some fresh mint, chopped up a little red onion, got out the cumin and olive oil and a little lemon juice and I was ready. I heard the front door open and heard the keys hit the hall table and he came in with NO mangoes.
“The mango man’s booth is gone, must be the end of the season,” he said as if it didn’t matter that I’d gone through all that work and there was NO mango salsa to go with it. I had plans for that mango that didn’t exist.
He acted like there was no drama to be had whatsoever. Me, on the other hand, couldn’t understand why he hadn’t gone to the supermarket less than 5 minutes from where Dan the Mango Man’s booth normally sits. I looked at him and thought bad words. He’s deep into finishing up his index plugin so I held my tongue and started rummaging through the pantry.
I spied a tin of pineapple pieces. Lunch was sorted and John’s dad wouldn’t have to starve. I plopped all the ingredients into a bowl, drizzled it with olive oil and cooked up the fritters. I left out the chili in the salsa because John’s dad can’t handle it. Lunch was job done.
We enjoyed our corn fritters sitting in front of the TV watching Victoria Azurenka grunt and scream her way to a loss at the Australian Open tennis tournament. I bet I said, “Stick a freakin sock in it,” more times than is healthy.
If you haven’t made corn fritters, shame on you. They are wonderful. They are even better with mango salsa but pineapple and mint work just fine too. I bet any sort of salsa or chutney would be great with them. This is a great vegetarian lunch idea.
- 1 egg
- 1 cup of corn kernels cut off the cob (and scrape the cob too for all the good bits left behind)
- ½ teaspoon cumin
- ½ onion chopped finely
- 1 cup self-raising flour
- Milk
- salt and pepper to taste
- chopped parsley
- chopped chives
- oil for frying
- 1 mango (I used canned pineapple pieces)
- handful of fresh mint, chopped
- ¼ lemon, juiced
- ¼ red onion finely chopped
- ½ red chili finely chopped (you can add more or leave it out - I left it out)
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- Toss everything in a bowl and mix well. Make first so flavours develop.
- Into a medium sized bowl add the corn, the onion, the egg, salt and pepper and mix well.
- Add flour and milk alternately until you have a thick gloopy batter. It should look like a really thick, lumpy pancake batter.
- Add any herbs you like, or bacon or leeks or anything that's sitting in your fridge.
- Heat a frying pan to medium and add oil. Make small fritters and cook until golden brown on the bottom. Flip and cook til browned on the bottom.
- Serve with salsa