Home › Bread, Etc. › Batter for Frying Savories
Batter for Frying Savories
1/2 pint of milk 2 ounces of flour 1/2 teaspoon of baking powder Mix the milk and flour very smoothly together, adding the milk a little at a time until it is all used; stir in the salt. The batter must always be mixed at least three hours before it is required or it will not be light. Add the baking powder just before the batter is used, and be careful to mix it very thoroughly.
A thin coating batter for dipping vegetables, cheese or fritters before frying. The ingredient list omits the salt the method calls for, and the quantities are British.
- Half a pint of milkIf the book is British this is an imperial half-pint, 10 fluid ounces, or about 1 1/4 US cups; an American half-pint would be 8 fluid ounces. Two ounces of flour is about 1/2 cup by scoop-and-level, so either way the result is a genuinely thin batter — closer to crepe consistency than to a thick fritter coating.
- The missing saltSalt appears in the method but not the list. About 1/4 teaspoon for this quantity is right; more if the thing being coated is bland, such as cauliflower or potato.
- Why the three-hour restThis is the hinge. Resting lets the flour hydrate fully and the gluten relax, so the batter clings evenly and fries crisp rather than tough. An hour helps; three is better, and overnight in the refrigerator does no harm.
- Baking powder lastAdded at the start, the leavening would exhaust itself during the rest. Stirred in immediately before frying, it gives a brief lift in the pan. Sift or whisk it through thoroughly — pockets of undissolved powder taste soapy.
- Frying temperatureFor a batter this thin, fat at 350–375F. Cooler and it soaks; hotter and the outside colours before the coated food heats through.
- YieldEnough to coat roughly a pound of prepared vegetables, or about 12 small fritters. Whatever is dipped should be dry, or the batter slides off.
A batter of this kind turned almost anything — cauliflower, parsnip, cheese, cooked rice, leftover vegetables — into something substantial enough to head a plate where a chop would otherwise sit. "Savories" here may carry the British sense, the small hot dish at the close of a meal, or may simply stand as the counterpart to a sweet fritter, which is why the batter carries no sugar. The instruction to rest a batter for hours predates any explanation of gluten and starch hydration; the practice was established before the chemistry accounted for it.