Favorite Ingredients Fridays ~ Side Dish Edition

Yay! It's Favorite Ingredients Friday! I love participating in this little Friday ritual. :)

This week's theme is side dishes, and actually it was a hard one for me. Apparently, I have a startling lack of side-dish recipes in my arsenal. It's kind of embarrassing, really.

I ended up choosing a recipe for corn fritters, which might not seem like a traditional side-dish, but in our family it kind of is. I remember making these the first time because I had leftover corn and a desire to try something new while having a finger-food dinner (kind of a thing we do in our family). We liked them so much, we upgraded them to mealtime partner to things like fried chicken, country fried steak, BBQ pork so that we could take advantage of the fryer oil we were already using.

This recipe also saved my life. My father's favorite snack is oyster fritters that can only be found once a year at a fair. I sneakily bought a box of the fritter mix from the folks that make them and attempted to recreate them for my father's birthday... To absolutely disasterous results. Out of desperation, I adapted this corn fritter recipe to oyster fritters, and they never had a chance to cool down my father ate them so fast. He thought I had swiped the recipe from the folks at the fair. :)

I'd love to fiddle with these to make them apple fritters, even fried dough, but I haven't gotten around to it. It's on my "To Do" list. :)

So here it is, my recipe for Corn Fritters:

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Corn Fritters

3 C. Oil for frying
1 C. All-Purpose Flour, sifted
1 tsp. Salt
1/4 tsp. White Sugar
1 Egg, lightly beaten
1/2 C. Milk
1 TBL. Shortening, melted
1 (12 oz) can Whole Kernel Corn, drained

Heat oil in a heavy pot or deep fryer to 365 degrees F (185 degrees C).

In a medium bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and sugar. Beat together egg, milk, and melted shortening; stir into flour mixture. Mix in corn kernels.

Drop fritter batter by spoonfuls into the hot oil, and fry until golden. Drain on paper towels and serve warm.