Fritter away the hours, in an offhand way

[madbaker]

This week's Resolution Recipe: Rice Fritters.
I wanted to try these since ppfuf made these for breakfast. It wasn't anything like the yummy dish she made, but it was still good.

Make rice cooked in milk into fritters in the same way as above, with only cheese and milk left out.
[Add a little meal, some egg whites, some milk, and a little more sugar to ground cheese... and grind together in the same mortar. Put this preparation in a pan, either by hand or with a spoon or some other utensil, and cook where the best fat and butter or oil is already boiling. It is necessary that these fritters be eaten hot.]

8 ounces cooked rice, cooked in milk (I used leftover Ryse of Fische Daye)
1 Tbsp white wheat flour
3 egg whites
2 Tbsp turbinado sugar
lard, butter, or rapeseed oil (I used rendered lard from house-cured bacon... mmm, bacon grease.)

Grind together cold cooked rice, flour, egg whites, and sugar. Heat 1/4" of lard, butter, or oil in a skillet over medium-high heat to 275 degrees. Drop spoonfuls (approximately 2 Tbsp) of the rice mixture into grease and fry for 1-2 minutes per side, flip, and repeat. Serve hot.

All of these types of fat are used in Platina for frying. Rapeseed oil (marketed as Canola) is the easiest to heat without smoking, but lard or butter produce a tastier fritter.

What worked: Tasty tasty. Also easy. This would be a good one to make up ahead of time and take to events in a Ziploc. Using rice made with almond milk worked very well.

What didn't: It was too runny, almost pancake batter texture. Too many egg whites vs. too little rice. No more flour as I could taste the flour as it was. I'm also not convinced that "flour" is the best ingredient for "meal" - Milham translates "pollinis parum" as "meal" and "farina" as flour. Although the OED calls it "The edible part of any grain or pulse ground to a powder. Now commonly understood to exclude the product of wheat (this being called flour)." I'm not sure that this distinction was made in the 15th century.

Will I make it again? Yes. I want to get a thicker fritter batter and resolve the "meal" question. Any thoughts on that?

Comments

[ppfuf.livejournal.com]

Hi Wulfric, I made a new version of these over the weekend too. They weren't as good as last time. This time I used sliced toasted almonds (no skins), and I think it threw the texture off. I also used less sugar. Edible, but not great. Please remind me to check what Epulario says, as I think that's the source I used last time (rather than Martino/Platina).