Corn Fritters

The last sweet corn is coming in from the fields. These fritters make excellent use of corn. They taste amazing when made with fresh sweet corn, but also taste pretty darn good when made with frozen corn kernels. This recipe was inspired by a similar one in The Joy of Cooking.

If you've never scraped corn kernels from the cob, it's an easy task. Peel back the husks and remove the silks. Place the cob in a bowl to catch the kernels and to keep the corn juices from spattering too much. Now, hold the cob by the bottom end and use a knife to cut off the kernels. After you've removed the kernels, use the back of the knife to scrape the "cream" from the base of the kernels. This cream adds depth of taste to your dish, as well as making cut corn creamy.

Ingredients:

2 ears of fresh corn (about 1 cup)
1 egg
1 Tbs flour
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper
1 tsp olive or canola oil

Directions:

Cut the kernels and scrape the juice from the corn into a large bowl. Separate the yolk from the egg white, adding the yolk to the corn, and putting the egg white into a small, clean bowl. Add the flour, sugar and a pinch of salt and pepper to the corn mixture. Beat the egg whites until they form stiff peaks, but aren't dry. Fold the egg whites into the corn mixture.

Heat a large nonstick skillet over medium heat and add the oil. Drop the corn batter into the skillet, forming fritters about 3 inches in diameter. Cook the fritters for 2 or 3 minutes until brown, turn once, and brown on the second side. Don't press the fritters down! Serve at once.

Serves 4, 2 small fritters each.

Stealthy Cooking Tip: These fritters only taste sinful! Usually fritters are deep fried, and wouldn't be found anywhere near a healthy diet. These, however, are pan sauteed using just one teaspoon of olive oil. Plus, they're chock full of corn. Even though we usually think of corn as a vegetable, it's technically a grain. Like many grains, corn is a good source of complex carbohydrates as well as fiber.