I have been wanting to make these potato fritters for a long time and yesterday I seemed to find the time to make these. These fritters on their own ate quite mild therefore they should be served with a cilantro mint mayo and a simple tangy cherry tomato salad to balance out all the flavours. If you think there a lot of components and it will take forever to make, you are WRONG! It is very simple to make and quite straightforward. If you have all the ingredients ready and prepped you can make it in half an hour.
All the components are so easy to make that it involves just mixing together of ingredients. The potato fritters are crisp on the outside, stringy and soft in the inside. The fritter along with the herbed mayo and tangy-sweet cherry tomato salad is a wonderful combination. This dish has it all, sweet, salty, tangy, spicy, creamy, crunchy, soft! What more can one need? Usually fritter recipes call for egg but I found a good substitute for it……cooked oats! Yes, cooked oats. Works like a charm. For making the cooked oats, just add 2 1/2 tablespoons of the oats to 1/4 cup of water and cook it for 2 minutes or so until it thickens and softens. That’s it!
Ingredients: (Yields 8 fritters)
For potato and cottage cheese fritters–
- Grated potato- 1 1/4 cups or 270 grams of grated potato (I used around 2 medium potatoes)
- Grated cottage cheese- 1/2 cup or 80 grams
- Finely chopped onion- 2 tablespoons
- Garlic clove- 1; finely chopped
- Chopped cilantro/coriander- 2 teaspoons
- Salt- 1 1/4 teaspoon or as needed
- Pepper- 1/2 teaspoon
- Red chilli flakes- 1 teaspoon
- Plain/All purpose flour- 1/4 cup
- Cooked oats- 1/4 cup
- Bread crumbs- 2 tablespoons
- Sunflower oil- 2 tablespoons for pan frying
For cilantro mint mayo–
- Mayonnaise- 1/4 cup
- Chopped mint- 2 tablespoons
- Chopped cilantro/coriander- 2 tablespoons
- Sugar-1 teaspoon
- Salt- 1/4 teaspoon
- Black pepper powder- 1/4 teaspoon
For cherry tomato salad–
- Cherry tomatoes- 15; cut in half
- Small red onion- 1/2; sliced
- Garlic clove- 1; finely chopped
- Balsamic vinegar- 3/4 teaspoon (If you do not have balsamic vinegar you can use the same amount of lime juice or red wine vinegar or just regular vinegar but the first preference would be balsamic vinegar)
- Olive oil- 3/4 teaspoon
- Chopped mint- 2 tablespoons
- Chopped cilantro/coriander- 2 tablespoons
- Sugar- 1 teaspoon
- Salt and pepper- to taste
Method:
For cilantro mint mayo–
Add mayo to a bowl and beat it till smooth. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix until well combined. Give it a taste to check for salt and pepper and adjust accordingly. Set aside.
For cherry tomato salad–
Add the halved cherry tomatoes, sliced onion, chopped garlic, chopped mint and coriander, a little salt and sugar to a bowl. Mix well and leave it for 1 minute to allow the sugar to melt and mix well. Then dress it with the balsamic vinegar and olive oil and season it with a little more salt and pepper. Taste it and adjust the salt and pepper accordingly. Set aside to infuse.
For potato and cottage cheese fritters–
Squeeze out as much water as you can from the grated potato and pat dry it with a tea towel or kitchen towel. This will ensure that the fritters are crisp and not soggy. Add the squeezed potato, grated cottage cheese, chopped coriander, salt, pepper, chilli flakes, chopped onion and chopped garlic to a bowl. Mix it well. Add the cooked oats, plain flour and breadcrumbs and mix it well until it comes together. Taste a small amount and check for salt and pepper and add more if needed. Divide this into 8 equal parts and roll it out into balls.
Flatten the balls to form fritters of about 1/4 inch thickness.
In a shallow, flat pan, add a tablespoon of oil and allow it to become hot. A good way to check if the pan is hot enough is to add a tiny amount of the fritter dough and if it sizzles, it is hot enough. Make sure you keep the flame at low. When the oil is hot enough, place 4 of the fritters making sure you leave ample space between them. Fry for 2-3 minutes on each side or until it is golden brown and crisp. Use a flat spatula to flip it. Make sure you fry it over the lowest possible flame to ensure that it gets cooked. Once you are done frying that batch, place the fritters over a kitchen paper or kitchen towel to drain all the excess oil. Now add the remaining one tablespoon of oil to the pan and fry the remaining 4 fritters and place over kitchen paper.
Serve hot with a generous amount of cilantro mint mayo and cherry tomato salad. 🙂
My Culinary Experiments 