Home › The Principles of Cookery › Indian Fritters
Indian Fritters
Beat two eggs well, whites and yolks together; add two ounces of semolina by degrees, and then a quarter of a pint of milk, making a smooth batter. Put three ounces of fresh butter in a small saucepan, and when it boils put in one dessert-spoonful of batter at a time, and fry to a rich brown colour. Fry each separately, and serve hot, dusted with castor sugar.
A small, quick sweet fritter — closer to a batter drop-scone fried in butter than to a doughnut. The whole thing takes fifteen minutes once the batter has stood.
- Let the batter standSemolina needs time to absorb liquid or the fritters are gritty inside. Mix it, then leave it 20-30 minutes; it will thicken noticeably and may need a spoonful more milk to return to a dropping consistency.
- Quarter of a pint of milkThis is a British imperial measure: 5 fl oz, about 2/3 cup. With 2 oz (about 1/3 cup) semolina and two eggs you get a pouring batter that thickens as the grain swells.
- SemolinaCoarse durum wheat meal, sold as semolina or sooji. Fine semolina works best here; the coarse couscous-grade type stays chalky in so short a cooking time.
- "When it boils"Butter does not boil, it foams and then the water in it cooks off. Wait until the loud sputtering quiets and the foam subsides, then add the batter. Three ounces in a small pan gives perhaps half an inch of fat, so these shallow-fry rather than deep-fry.
- Butter will darkenThe milk solids brown fast and can burn between batches. Either clarify the butter first, or skim the sediment and top up with fresh butter as you go; frying them one at a time, as instructed, keeps the fat from cooling and lets you watch its colour.
- Castor sugarSuperfine sugar. Granulated will not cling; a fine dusting of superfine or a mix with confectioners' sugar does. Dust the moment they leave the pan.
- YieldA dessert-spoonful is about two teaspoons, so the batter runs to two dozen or more small fritters. They collapse and toughen on standing, so fry them to order.
Victorian British cookery books used geographical names loosely, and an "Indian" dish in a book of this period often signalled an association with the Raj rather than an authenticated regional origin. Semolina -- sooji -- is the base of Indian sweets such as halwa, though nothing in the recipe itself fixes the connection.