Corn Fritters

"To a pint of grated corn add two well beaten eggs; one-half cup of cream, and a half cup of flour; with one-half spoon of baking powder stirred in it; season with pepper and salt and fry in butter, dropping the batter in spoonsful ; serve a few at a time, very hot, as a relish with meats."

                                               from the Canadian Home Cook Book of 1877

There were 3 recipes for little fried corn patties in the Canadian Home Cook Book; they were all fairly similar to the one quoted above, and called Green Corn Oysters or Patties. I suppose they were about the size and shape of a fried oyster, hence the name.

I have tried versions of them at various times over the years and have never been very happy with the results. Either there is too much batter and they are like pancakes with corn in them, or else I messed around with the recipe with the result there wasn't too much batter, but they didn't hold together. At all.

However this year I remembered my success with using potato starch in crepes, and tried making them again, this time with potato starch. Wow! MAD SUCCESS!

None of the recipes indicated whether the corn should be raw or cooked; they took it for granted that you knew. Since the "recipe" for boiled corn called for it to be boiled for 30 minutes, I'm going to assume they meant cooked. However, since I wouldn't dream of boiling corn for 30 minutes I just went with raw corn. It worked fine.

You'll note that half of them are, uh, well-browned. That's because I eyeballed the pan and decided it didn't need to have more oil added for the second batch of corn. I was wrong. Also you should probably turn the heat down a bit at that point as it will get pretty hot while the cooked fritters are switched out for new batter. On the other hand, the well-browned fritters were fine, just not as pretty as the first batch.

2 to 4 servings
20 minutes prep time

2 cobs of corn (about 2 cups of kernels)
1 large egg
1/4 cup potato starch
1/4 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper to taste
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 cup mild vegetable oil

Husk the corn, and cut it from the cobs. Put it in a mixing bowl. Scrape the cobs well and add the scrapings to the bowl. Mix in the egg.

Mix the potato starch, salt, and baking powder, and mix that into the corn and egg.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a large skillet over medium to medium-high heat. Spoon in 4 patties each consisting of about one-eighth of the batter, and spread it out a bit. Fry until a nice, crisp brown then turn and cook on the other side. This won't take more than a minute or 2 per side.

Remove to a rack covered in paper towel, add the remaining oil, and spoon out the rest of the batter and cook in the same way. Serve at once.




Last year at this time I made Cauliflower Salad.

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