Sweet or savoury fritters

I have a bit of a running joke in our house. My extra fussy daughter always has to ask what the ingredients are in the food I make. In just about every case my answer is flour, eggs, milk and butter. It’s funny because if you have those ingredients in your pantry/fridge you can make just about anything including fritters.

I was particularly tired one evening and wondered what on earth we could have for dinner. Other than making baked beans on toast I came up with the idea to make apple fritters. A bit like a doughnut but with a slice of apple inside and then rolled in cinnamon and sugar. Let me tell you they were exactly like that and just delicious with a bit of ice cream. I didn’t win any points with the nutritionists but sure did win points with my son. My fussy daughter did have her regular Vegemite sandwich when we’re having an easy dinner.

I had batter left over so kept it in the fridge for the following night and added chopped ham and a small tin of corn and we had savoury fritters with a salad. I used to make a bulk batch of a pancake recipe that easily adapts to a fritter recipe so I could have sweet or savoury fritters at short notice.

You can add whatever you like to a fritter. For sweet, chop the fruit or keep it whole like a banana and just dip the whole banana into the batter. For savoury, add any meat or vegetable. 

And as for flour, eggs, milk and butter you can make an omelette, scrambled eggs, frittata, French toast (if you have bread, rolls, fruit bread, croissants, bagels). You can make cake, biscuits, scones, damper, custard or you can have a piece of toast. I love having a well stocked pantry.

This is a basic fritter batter recipe from www.taste.com.au but I use the one from my high school text book.

Sweet & Sour Sauce

If there’s one recipe you have in your collection, it has to be this one. This recipe was given to me by an online friend years ago (hi Lyn if you’re around) and it the best and easiest Sweet & Sour sauce recipe I’ve ever tried. Its made using basic pantry ingredients and is a cinch.

You can serve it without any pineapple or vegetables and use it as a dipping sauce for chicken, fish, meatballs etc when you’re entertaining or add any vegetables and pineapple with the meat of your choice for a quick, easy mid week meal.

Sweet & Sour Sauce

• 1 tbs cornflour
• 4 tbs juice (I used the pineapple juice from the canned pineapple but have used normal orange juice before)
• 1/4 cup vinegar
• 1 tbs soy sauce
• 2 tbs sugar
• 2 tbs tomato sauce
• 200ml chicken or vegetable stock

• Vegetables of your choice, eg onions, carrots, capsicum (bell peppers), beans, peas, zucchini
• Fresh or canned pineapple

1. Combine juice and cornflour.
2. Add to a saucepan with vinegar, soy sauce, sugar, tomato sauce and stock. 
3. Stir until thickened.
4. You can par-cook vegetables you’re adding but I just add them to the sauce straight away and as the sauce thickens the vegetables get cooked. (I prefer them a little crunchy anyway.)
5. Add pineapple and heat through.
6. Serve with meat of your choice and rice. (Tonight mine was sausages which is actually pretty tasty but it’s perfect with fish, chicken, pork or beef.)