party food postmortem: anchovy-sage fritters
I'm too wired to sleep. I blame the ventolin I needed late in the evening.
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This is a recipe from my Jamie's Italy (Jamie Oliver) cookbook. It was a big hit. Everyone was blown away the moment they put one in their mouths. However, it's pretty fussy to make and the recipe quantities are problematic.
The chief problem is the quantity of batter. I made several more than 12 fritters in the recipe and it didn't seem like I made a dent in the quantity of batter at all. And you can't easily scale it down given the 1 egg yolk. It might be worth trying to half, but you can't really go much smaller, and you'd still have a ton of batter. As delicious as they are, they are deep fried and really salty so people are only going to eat so many. My other caveat is that although these are fillets of anchovy sandwiched between sage leaves, you can't assume a 1:2 ratio unless you have truly copious amounts of sage leaves to choose from, so the number is merely a starting point. You'll probably end up tearing up the fillets and pairing the pieces with smaller leaves. It's too messy to figure out how many leaves as you go along, so estimate as you pick out the leaves.
I'd never deep fried before, but it was not scary or rushed as I feared. Jamie's tip for gauging oil temp is to drop a small piece of potato in the oil, and if it turns golden quickly, the oil is ready. I didn't have potato on hand, so I went to the basement to get my probe thermometer out of storage and although I knew exactly which moving box it was in (yes, we're still not fully unpacked) by the time I came back up the oil was way too hot. I was pretty sure it was a bad idea to add room temp oil to cool it, so I just had to sit and wait.
In the photo in the book, they look elegant due to the sage leaves because Jamie says to scrape the excess batter off on the edge of the bowl. I didn't, going instead for amorphous and fluffy. The fluffiness is from beaten egg white folded in last. The recipe says to beat the whites until stiff. I was not going to use the stand mixer for 2 egg whites, so I beat with a fork and gave up at soft peaks. I think I might look for a small hand held mixer from a thrift store for this kind of thing. Jamie's idea seems to be just enough batter to keep the sage from just separating from the fish in the fryer, but fried batter is yummy. Also, there's so damned much batter anyway!!!
Lastly, the recipe gives vin santo or sweet white wine or juice and zest of a lemon as marinade options for the anchovies. I used the lemon juice and zest and the anchovy-lemon flavour contrast was so perfect, I doubt I'd ever bother trying it with wine. The bright sunny lemon with the salty melty anchovy is a heavenly combination.
Anyway, the recipe:
12 anchovy fillets in oil
24 sage leaves
1 small glass vin santo or other sweet white wine or juice and zest of 1 lemon (I say lemon!)
flour for dusting
oil for deep frying
batter:
2 cups bread flour (I didn't even have all purpose. I ended up using cake flour.)
pinch salt
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup fizzy water
6 tbsp olive oil
2 egg whites
Pick the anchovy fillets out of the oil they're packed in and marinate them for an hour in the lemon juice and zest.
Choose your sage leaves, moisten them with a light sprinkling of water and then dredge them with flour. I spread them out on a plate at this point.
Prepare the batter. First, whisk the flour, salt, yolk and still water until well combined. Next, whisk in the fizzy water little by little, and then the oil. Let stand half an hour. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff, or soft peaks if you get tired like I did. Fold into the flour mixture.
When the fillets are done marinating, fish them out of the marinade, mostly leaving the zest behind. Take the fillets or fillet pieces, flick off remaining zest and sandwich them between two floured leaves squeezing them together well.
Once you have all your sandwiches laid out on a plate, you're ready to fry. Prepare a plate with a couple layers of paper towel. Select a pot and heat at least 2 inches deep of oil to 350F. Once the frying temp is reached, turn the heat down and maintain (not that crucial to keep it steady, just keep and eye on it.) Using tongs, dip each sandwich in the batter. Fry a few at a time depending on how many can freely float in your size of pot. Fry until they develop a golden colour and transfer to the paper towel lined plate to drain.
Eat warm before they get soggy, but not so hot you burn your mouth on the melty anchovy.
=====================
This is a recipe from my Jamie's Italy (Jamie Oliver) cookbook. It was a big hit. Everyone was blown away the moment they put one in their mouths. However, it's pretty fussy to make and the recipe quantities are problematic.
The chief problem is the quantity of batter. I made several more than 12 fritters in the recipe and it didn't seem like I made a dent in the quantity of batter at all. And you can't easily scale it down given the 1 egg yolk. It might be worth trying to half, but you can't really go much smaller, and you'd still have a ton of batter. As delicious as they are, they are deep fried and really salty so people are only going to eat so many. My other caveat is that although these are fillets of anchovy sandwiched between sage leaves, you can't assume a 1:2 ratio unless you have truly copious amounts of sage leaves to choose from, so the number is merely a starting point. You'll probably end up tearing up the fillets and pairing the pieces with smaller leaves. It's too messy to figure out how many leaves as you go along, so estimate as you pick out the leaves.
I'd never deep fried before, but it was not scary or rushed as I feared. Jamie's tip for gauging oil temp is to drop a small piece of potato in the oil, and if it turns golden quickly, the oil is ready. I didn't have potato on hand, so I went to the basement to get my probe thermometer out of storage and although I knew exactly which moving box it was in (yes, we're still not fully unpacked) by the time I came back up the oil was way too hot. I was pretty sure it was a bad idea to add room temp oil to cool it, so I just had to sit and wait.
In the photo in the book, they look elegant due to the sage leaves because Jamie says to scrape the excess batter off on the edge of the bowl. I didn't, going instead for amorphous and fluffy. The fluffiness is from beaten egg white folded in last. The recipe says to beat the whites until stiff. I was not going to use the stand mixer for 2 egg whites, so I beat with a fork and gave up at soft peaks. I think I might look for a small hand held mixer from a thrift store for this kind of thing. Jamie's idea seems to be just enough batter to keep the sage from just separating from the fish in the fryer, but fried batter is yummy. Also, there's so damned much batter anyway!!!
Lastly, the recipe gives vin santo or sweet white wine or juice and zest of a lemon as marinade options for the anchovies. I used the lemon juice and zest and the anchovy-lemon flavour contrast was so perfect, I doubt I'd ever bother trying it with wine. The bright sunny lemon with the salty melty anchovy is a heavenly combination.
Anyway, the recipe:
12 anchovy fillets in oil
24 sage leaves
1 small glass vin santo or other sweet white wine or juice and zest of 1 lemon (I say lemon!)
flour for dusting
oil for deep frying
batter:
2 cups bread flour (I didn't even have all purpose. I ended up using cake flour.)
pinch salt
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup fizzy water
6 tbsp olive oil
2 egg whites
Pick the anchovy fillets out of the oil they're packed in and marinate them for an hour in the lemon juice and zest.
Choose your sage leaves, moisten them with a light sprinkling of water and then dredge them with flour. I spread them out on a plate at this point.
Prepare the batter. First, whisk the flour, salt, yolk and still water until well combined. Next, whisk in the fizzy water little by little, and then the oil. Let stand half an hour. In a separate bowl beat the egg whites until stiff, or soft peaks if you get tired like I did. Fold into the flour mixture.
When the fillets are done marinating, fish them out of the marinade, mostly leaving the zest behind. Take the fillets or fillet pieces, flick off remaining zest and sandwich them between two floured leaves squeezing them together well.
Once you have all your sandwiches laid out on a plate, you're ready to fry. Prepare a plate with a couple layers of paper towel. Select a pot and heat at least 2 inches deep of oil to 350F. Once the frying temp is reached, turn the heat down and maintain (not that crucial to keep it steady, just keep and eye on it.) Using tongs, dip each sandwich in the batter. Fry a few at a time depending on how many can freely float in your size of pot. Fry until they develop a golden colour and transfer to the paper towel lined plate to drain.
Eat warm before they get soggy, but not so hot you burn your mouth on the melty anchovy.