Corned Beef Fritters

Corned Beef with white sauce and vegies was (and still is) a favoured meal when we were growing up. Get a decent sized corned beef and there are enough leftovers for a few sandwiches the next day.

Even better, Dad would use the corned beef leftovers for the next night’s dinner. Corned Beef Fritters! Padded out with chopped onion and tomato, and any other vegetables left over from the night before, fritters made a great filling meal.

Any other meat from the previous night’s roast will work well as the cornerstone ingredient of the fritter fillings. Corned beef is the best of the lot as the flavour is ideal for fritters.

The fillings listed below are a guide. You can pretty much use whatever will sit inside the batter that is either already cooked or will cook quickly in the frying pan. The fritters cooked on this occasion had fresh zucchini chopped into cubes and they cooked perfectly as they were.

I use olive oil spread or margarine to coat the frying pan before each fritter is cooked. You can use oil instead, however, be aware the fritters do soak up a lot of oil and still needs oil added for each fritter. I find the flavour from the margarine to better compliment the fritters.

When cooking, look for the bubbles to start bursting on the top. When they are mostly over the fritter surface, flip it over to cook the other side. It is only a couple of minutes to cook each side, depending on the temperature of the frying pan. You will work out how long it takes after a couple have been cooked.

When taking the cooked fritter out of the pan, I take the pan off the hot plate, add the margarine and fritter batter, then place it back on the hot plate. I do this as I find when there is no fritter in the pan, it heats up rapidly the break keeps it from over searing the batter when it is initially added in.

We don’t typically serve the fritters on the table. Everyone grabs their plate and takes a fritter or two from the oven. You can always go back for another if you are still hungry for more. If you run out before everyone has had their fill, you need to up the recipe quantities to make more next time.

Fritters can be a good meal for the kids to make as well. They may need some assistance cutting up the filling, depending on their age, but they are not difficult to make. There can be a bit of mess as the batter can drip as they are spooning it and can’t hold the bowl near the frying pan. This batch was cooked by one of our kids, learning to do it the first time.

One ingredient missing from the recipe is practically an essential accompaniment. Fritters are fantastic with tomato sauce over them. “That is too much tomato sauce, you don’t need that much” has been said frequently to our kids at the dinner table, but nary when we have fritters. It is with fritters that I set a bad example on overuse of tomato sauce.

There is a divide in our household on preference over tomato sauce or BBQ sauce. They have their version; I have the truth. Tomato sauce is the best!

What happens if you make too many fritters? No such thing has been said here about the leftovers of the leftovers. These fritters are great eaten cold for lunch the next day. Better than a sandwich filled with leftovers. And if you prefer them hot, you can reheat them. Either way, remember the tomato sauce.