Cecamariti fritters
Use up odds and ends of veg in these deep-fried dough balls. They're great served as snacks with drinks.
Ingredients
- 2.5g dried yeast
- 200g/7 oz plain flour
- 50g/1¾ oz fine semolina flour
- 5g/1/8 oz salt
- 10 black olives, destoned and roughly chopped
- 1 red pepper, roasted, peeled and roughly chopped
- 1 small courgette, roughly chopped
- 5 cherry tomatoes, roughly chopped
- ½ red onion, roughly chopped
- 2 tbsp capers
- pinch dried oregano
- 1 garlic clove, crushed
- vegetable oil, for deep frying
Method
Mix the yeast with the 200ml/7 fl oz lukewarm water and allow to sit for 5 minutes.
Add the plain flour and semolina to a bowl and pour in the yeast mixture. Knead for 5 minutes before adding the salt. Knead for another 10 minutes – the dough will still be quite wet.
Add the chopped olives, red pepper, courgette, tomatoes and onion to the dough along with the capers, oregano and garlic. Mix to combine. Cover and allow to rise for about 2 hours, until doubled in size.
Heat the oil in a deep fat fryer to 180C. (CAUTION: hot oil can be dangerous. Do not leave unattended.) Cook the dough in batches by pinching off portions and rolling into small golf ball-size balls before adding to the hot oil. This can be quite tricky as the dough is very wet, so wearing kitchen gloves or oiling your hands might make the job easier.
Cook the dough balls for a few minutes until they are golden-brown and puffed up, then remove and place on a plate lined with kitchen roll.
