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Fried Oyster Plant
Make a batter as follows: Take 6 spoonfuls of flour, a small pinch of salt, 1 spoonful of olive-oil, and beat the whole with beer enough to make it into batter, but do not make it too liquid. Then beat the whites of 2 eggs, and when well beaten pour them into the batter, which you must keep stirring gently. Next put the vegetables, that are done beforehand and well drained in a cloth, into the batter; take them out again one by one, and throw them into hot fat. When fried of a fine color and crisp, serve to table with fried parsley in the centre of the dish, and a little salt sprinkled over.
A beer-batter fritter for salsify, which nineteenth-century cooks called oyster plant for its faintly briny flavour. The recipe assumes the roots are already cooked, which is the step most likely to be missed.
- Oyster plant is salsifyThe long, tapering, pale root sold as salsify (or its dark-skinned relative scorzonera) at farmers' markets and Italian grocers. Peel it, and drop the pieces into acidulated water at once or they brown quickly.
- "Done beforehand"The roots must be simmered until a knife slides through easily — roughly 15 to 25 minutes depending on thickness — then drained and patted thoroughly dry. Raw salsify will not cook through inside the batter.
- SpoonfulsMost likely tablespoons: six tablespoons of flour is about three-eighths of a cup, with one tablespoon of oil. Beer to consistency is the real instruction, so add it slowly to a thick, coating batter rather than a pourable one.
- The beerA plain ale or lager. The carbonation and the beaten whites together are what make the crust light, so mix the batter shortly before frying and fold the whites in at the last moment.
- Fat temperatureThe recipe says only "hot fat"; in modern terms aim for roughly 350–375°F. Below that the batter absorbs grease; much above it and the coating colours before the interior sets.
- Fried parsleyCurly parsley, very dry, dropped into the same fat for 10 to 15 seconds until it stops sputtering and turns brilliant green. Wet parsley will spit violently, so shake it out well first.
- YieldThe recipe gives no quantity of vegetables; this amount of batter will coat a modest dish of cooked salsify. Fry in batches so the fat does not drop in temperature.