Two recipes in as many weeks? I know! Shocking isn’t it. Anyway, after having dinner with a friend and hearing she had declined her mothers kind offer of a surplus marrow, well, being a girl who never turns down a freebie, I put my hand up and volunteered to take the overgrown courgette off their hands. And so, just a few days later, a marrow was stowed behind my bin, carefully wrapped in a bag.
When I was married I was semi-regularly gifted HUGE marrows by my father in law, the type where you just know the allotment owner got distracted by the latest Gardeners World episode and let them get out of hand*. (Did you know a marrow is just an overgrown courgette? I didn’t until I was 30. The things you learn with age). I almost always stuffed them with Bolognese, but to be honest the tough skin was a bit grim and the best bit about those dinners was the beef, not the marrow boat shaped recepticle.
Not wanting to repeat the horror of stuffed marrow dinners, I consulted our good friend google and found this recipe for courgettes which I used as a base. The fritters were nothing short of delicious. I’ll be seeking out more rejected marrows forthwith. The recipe is below with adaptations for using a marrow and some changes because I am incapable of following a recipe. The original is here. Oh and they’re vegan too.
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*I should be clear here that my ex father in law would never have been distracted by anything when it came to green fingered matters. I think he grew marrows on purpose.
Minty marrow fritters
Makes about 20
Ingredients
For the fritters:
- 1kg grated marrow, without the skin or seeds
- 3 tsp salt
- 5 tbsp chia seeds
- Juice of 1 lemon juice
- 1 red onion, peeled and finely sliced
- 40 large mint leaves, finely chopped
- 6 garlic cloves, finely grated
- 2 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 100g plain flour
To fry/serve
- 60 ml and veg oil
- Yoghurt/eggs/tomato etc
Important: when you prepare the marrow you must remove the skin. I also took out the seeds from the centre of my marrow as they were quite spongey and I didn’t think they’d fry well. They can be left in if you wish.
Place the grated marrow into a colander and sprinkle with the salt. Use your hands to distribute evenly and leave over a sink for about half an hour. In the meantime stir together all the other ingredients in a large bowl.
Squeeze the marrow to remove as much water as possible. You can do this in your palms to start with and then squash into the colander after a bit. Stir the salted, grated marrow into the bowl of the other ingredients and use your hands to mix well. Don’t mix with a spoon, as you need to get your fingers in and make sure the chia seeds are evenly distributed. Leave for another 30 minutes for the chia seeds to do their magical binding thing. You can leave the mixture for longer if you prefer, overnight even.
Heat some vegetable oil in a large frying pan over a medium heat. Drop heaped tablespoons of the mixture into it and fry for 2 – 3 minutes on each side, using a fish slice to carefully turn. They will be fragile, so don’t worry if they fall apart a bit when they are turned, just reshape in the pan with the fish slice.
Serve hot with eggs, tomatoes, yoghurt, whatever you fancy. Store leftovers in the fridge with non stick parchment between the fritters. To reheat pop back in the frying pan for a few minutes.
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Holly Bell 