curried cauliflower fritters

servings
6

method

This is a really unusual but delicious way to eat cauliflower. The Japanese are brilliant at making lovely crispy batter for their tempura, so when I was over there I wanted to discover their secret. It turns out there are lots of different techniques, such as using cornflour instead of plain flour, or ice-cold sparkling water instead of tap water. In this recipe I’m going to use beer, though, as it gives such a nice color and goes well with the spices. However, the best advice I was given is to fry the fritters in small batches and eat them straight away, so they’re crunchy and hot.

PS: This batter recipe can be used for all sorts of things, like fish filets or thin chicken strips or any finely cut vegetable. You can leave the spices out if you prefer it plain.

First make your batter. Smash up the cumin and mustard seeds, chillies and peppercorns in a pestle and mortar until you have a powder. Put the flour into a mixing bowl and stir in the ground spices and the turmeric. Pour in most of the beer and whisk gently. Check the consistency – you want it to be the thickness of double cream. If it’s too thick, whisk in the rest of the beer. Don’t worry too much about having little lumps in the batter, as they’ll just become nice crunchy bits when you start frying. Season with sea salt and put to one side.

Trim the bottom off the stalk and break the cauliflower into bite-sized florets. Slice up the stalk into 2cm pieces – this way it will all cook at the same rate. Wash the cauliflower, drain it and pat dry with kitchen paper. Place the cauliflower pieces in a bowl and dust with a little flour.

Pour the oil into a deep saucepan – you want it to be about 10–12cm deep – and heat it to 180°C. If you don’t have a thermometer don't worry, just drop a piece of potato into the oil. When it floats to the surface and starts to sizzle, the oil will be at the right temperature so remove the potato from the pan.

Shake any excess flour off the cauliflower. One by one, dip the pieces into the beer batter, then carefully place them in the hot oil, moving them away from you as you do so. Make sure you stand back so you don’t get splashed. It’s best to fry them in batches so you don’t overcrowd the pan (but serve them as soon as each batch is ready). Each time a batch of cauliflower is nearly ready, add some battered parsley leaves to the pan and fry for 40 seconds (you want to serve them scattered over the fritters). Fry the pieces gently, turning them a couple of times with a slotted spoon. When they’re browned and crisp, lift them out of the oil, allowing any excess to drip back into the pan, and drain on kitchen paper. Dust with sea salt and squeeze over a little lemon juice.

• from Jamie at Home

ingredients

• 1 cauliflower
flour, for dusting
• vegetable oil
• optional: a small piece of potato, peeled
• a small bunch of fresh flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked
• sea salt
• 1 lemon

for the batter
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 2 teaspoons black mustard seeds
• 2–3 dried red chillies
• 1 teaspoon black peppercorns
• 200g self-raising flour
• ½ teaspoon turmeric
• 350ml cold beer
• sea salt

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tried this recipe or a similar one? share your tips...

1. by Ivan on Sat 04 Jun 2011 @ 16:35

Made it today. Absolutely delightful! Thank you.

2. by december12 on Sat 12 Feb 2011 @ 13:11

I can't print out the CURRIED CAULIFLOWER FRITTERS recipe. Why, what is different here as I have printed out a few already and savet to favorites many others......can you help as this is a luscious recipe that I want to try out.......<br /> <br /> thanks,<br /> Eve

3. by DanielHarragon on Wed 10 Feb 2010 @ 10:31

It's sound's beautiful! i must say thats a great way to get veg into you and the batter's not to bad and you no cook in olive oil then you will be fine i cook in olive oil wether im pan fyring deep frying it's worth it! i will deffently try this dish.

4. by Tasha on Thu 25 Jun 2009 @ 22:52

As a Muslim I can't use beer, so I use water and about 2 spoons of vinegar! works out great.

5. by rose on Wed 22 Apr 2009 @ 12:25

hiya jamie
i have started getting my grandkids to cook and i find some of the things you cook are easy for them
and they love it too
thank you rose xx

6. by sabs on Wed 08 Apr 2009 @ 20:28

indians do this too for their lovely 'pakoras'.............all the same.......we have always used cornflour too (my dad also adds beer) - lovely! enjoy!

Forget the self-raising flour - add a little bicarbonate of soda instead........;-)

You can do this with any vegetable - brocolli - onions - potaotes - aubergine EXPERIMENT!!!!!!

It's fun cooking! :-)
Cheers.

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