We received a number of ears of corn over a couple of different weeks from Just Farmed, and consequently, I’ve been searching for fresh corn recipes. I made a corn and coconut pudding recipe a couple weeks ago (recipe posted). With this latest round of corn, I toyed with a sweet corn gelato. However I’ve already made a Jersey blueberry gelato (recipe forthcoming) and I am sort of tired of desserts…I’ve made a lot of them lately (at least compared to what I normally cook). So, I thought of corn bread, but despite living in Texas for years, I really don’t love corn bread. I thought about making a slaw but I’ve already done that this year. I thought about just eating it plain either on the cob or simply pan seared with a shallot, etc. However, that seemed sort of boring as well and I sort of wanted to do something with it that I could include on the blog. I settled on corn fritters.

Corn fritters are very southern…as are most things that end in ‘fritter’. They are super simple, usually only comprised of a few ingredients and then fried until golden and crispy. I looked at a ton of recipes and there are a good number out there. Most recipes I looked at seemed to include a lot of flour and required deep frying in a large amount of oil. However, I settled on a basic recipe that involved very little flour, which allowed the actual fresh corn to shine. I shallow fried it, which I liked as it used a TON less oil than what you’d need for deep frying and it takes less time to heat the oil (obviously).

I made a jalapeno mayonnaise and mixed it with a good amount of Dijon mustard and a touch of honey to use as a dipping sauce. I thought the sauce went well with the corn fritters. However, my wife, though she liked the sauce, preferred the fritters just plain, without the sauce. The corn flavor certainly comes front and center if you forego the sauce. So…up to you. Tara thought that adding a bit of diced jalapeno into the corn batter would have been a good idea. I thought about that or about adding some finely diced shallot or onion but decided since this is the first time I made the recipe that I would go with pure corn, flavored only with kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper. You could certainly season it differently going in either a savory or a sweet direction. I can imagine either would work beautifully.

I used peanut oil for frying. I chose the oil as I knew it can withstand high heat frying. I also chose it as I sometimes watch Alton Brown’s Good Eats show and he said that frying in peanut oil has a neutral smell so you don’t get that ‘fried, oily’ smell throughout your kitchen and home. That’s a real bonus as I am not a fan of frying odors. AND he was correct…there was no odor at all.

I used a large cast iron pan and fit four in at a time, so they were pretty large. You can make them larger like I did or keep them smaller. I tested the recipe using a small amount first and the small fritter turned out just as well as the larger one. I kept the oil between 350 and 375. If you don’t have a thermometer, frying is more difficult but you can do it by testing the oil at first by making a small fritter and then based on that test, adjusting the range temperature up or down as needed. You’ll need to keep a pretty constant eye on how fast the oil is cooking the fritters without the thermometer as cooking at too high a temperature will end up with burned fritters and too low will result in very soggy, oil logged fritters.

You can reuse the oil several different times, so be sure to reserve it and use it for anther recipe in the future!

For as long of an intro I made you plow through before we got to the recipe, the recipe is very, very short. Here goes…it follows after the jump! Continue reading →