Crisp sweetcorn fritters

Sweetcorn frittersEverybody gets those days when happiness is not achievable without some fried chicken, and I wanted something horribly unhealthy to accompany it. Remembering fried chickens past, especially the ones I ate about a year ago at Lolo’s, a soul food restaurant in Phoenix, I decided that something with a sweet/savoury finish and a bit of spicing that would stand up to being drizzled with my own approximation of Lolo’s hot sauce was just what the chicken breasts I was cooking needed. The resulting fritters are crisp and puffy, and fall somewhere between an Indian pakora, a Thai fritter and a New Orleans beignet.

These are not not awfully good for you. Don’t make them too often.

To make ten once-a-year fritters and some killer honey hot sauce, you’ll need:

Fritters
1 large egg
60g plain flour
60ml milk
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
340g tin sweetcorn OR kernels from 2 fresh cobs sweetcorn
4 spring onions
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 small handful (about 15g) fresh chives
Oil to fry

Sauce
150ml bottle Frank’s original hot sauce (available in several UK supermarkets or online)
3 tablespoons runny honey

IngredientsBeat the egg into the milk. Grind the spices in a mortar and pestle with the salt, and mix with the flour, baking powder, chives and finely chopped spring onions in a large bowl. Use a whisk to beat the egg and milk into the flour mixture until you have a batter. Use a spoon to stir the corn kernels through the batter.

Drop heaped tablespoons of the batter mixture into your deep fryer, and cook a couple of minutes on each side, until crisp and golden.

To make the sauce, just combine the honey and hot sauce in a small pan and bring to a simmer, stirring well as you go. Cool before slathering generously all over your chicken and fritters. You can rebottle any extra.

Mexican squash and corn cream

butternut squash pureeDo try this one – it’s seriously good and has worked its way up to being a frequent star alongside my roast dinners. This silky, sweet puree works unbelievably well as an accompaniment, especially with poultry – I hope some of you will try it with your Christmas turkey. It’s rich and packed with flavour; and like many recipes which utilise creamed corn, it’s a favourite with children. It also works as a great quick main dish (and is lovely if you’re entertaining vegetarians – try it over rice with an interesting salad).

Butternut squash originates in Mexico, and it has an affinity for other Mexican ingredients like the corn, the coriander and the chillies. I’ve used crème fraîche here to loosen the mixture – an authentic Mexican dish might use crema, the thick, Mexican, sour cream, but really the difference between the two products is minuscule. If you can’t find smoky ground chipotle chillies where you are, just substitute your favourite crushed, dried chillies or chilli powder.

To serve two as a main dish or about four (depending on greed) as a side dish, you’ll need:

1 butternut squash
1 can creamed corn
3 heaped tablespoons crème fraîche
1 tablespoon salted butter
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¾ teaspoon ground chipotle chilli
1 large handful roughly chopped coriander

Peel the squash (you’ll find a serrated knife the best tool for this job – that peel is tough), remove the seeds and stringy pith, and chop the flesh into pieces about an inch square. Cover with water and simmer for 15 minutes until the pieces of squash are tender and soft when poked with a knife.

Drain the water off and return the squash pieces to the pan. Add the corn, butter and crème fraîche to the pan and mash with a potato masher off the heat until smooth. Season with the salt, pepper and chillies – you’ll find this dish will require quite a lot of salt for maximum flavour because of the natural sweetness of the vegetables.

Return the pan to a low heat and bring to a gentle simmer. Remove from the heat again and stir in the coarsely chopped coriander. Serve immediately.

This squash and corn cream freezes well.

Chicken and sweetcorn soup

This Chinese soup is a real favourite with children, and it’s pleasingly economical to make. You’ll only need two chicken leg joints (the joint with the thigh and drumstick attached) to serve four people.

You might have eaten this in Chinese restaurants. This is an egg-drop soup: this means it’s thickened by whisking a thin stream of beaten egg into the bubbling stock immediately before serving, leaving you with delicious strands of seasoned egg mingling with the chicken pieces and the sweetcorn. If you want to make extra to freeze, skip the egg stage, adding it to the defrosted soup immediately before you serve.

To serve four, you’ll need:

2 chicken leg joints
1 litre water
1 chicken stock cube
1 piece of ginger, about the size of your thumb, cut into coins
2 spring onions (plus extra to garnish)
3 cloves garlic
1 can creamed corn
2 tablespoons soya sauce
1 teaspoon cornflour
1 teaspoon sesame oil
2 eggs
Salt and pepper

Brown the outside of the chicken pieces in a large, heavy saucepan with the garlic, spring onions and ginger for five minutes. Pour over the water and a tablespoon of soya sauce, and crumble the stock cube into the pan. Bring up to a gentle simmer and keep over a medium heat for half an hour, skimming any froth off the top of the stock as you go.

Remove the chicken from the pan, and use a knife and fork to remove all the meat from the bones, chopping it into small pieces. Set the meat aside and return the bones and skin to the stock, and simmer for another half hour.

Strain the stock through a sieve to remove the bones, ginger, garlic and spring onions. Return the clear liquid to the pan and add the meat you took off the bones earlier and the can of creamed corn to the stock. Add a splash of cold water to the cornflour in a mug, mix well and stir into the stock. Bring back to a simmer. In a large jug, whisk the sesame oil, a tablespoon of soya sauce and the eggs together. Remove the soup from the heat and stir it hard, drizzling the egg mixture in a stream into the rotating liquid. Taste to check the seasoning, adding salt and pepper if necessary. Serve immediately, dressed with some chopped spring onion.

Crispy pasta bake

This is a bit like macaroni cheese, but even nicer. You’ll be making the normal Mornay (cheese) sauce base, but adding sweetly sauted shallots, corn and bacon to the mixture; and topping not with bread, but with croissant crumbs, which form a buttery and crisp top to the baked dish. You’ll need:

1 can sweetcorn
12 rashers smoked streaky bacon
6 shallots, sliced
400g pasta
50g butter
50g plain flour
850 ml (1 ½ pints) mlk
200g cheddar cheese, grated
100g soured cream
1 teaspoon mustard powder
1 grating nutmeg
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper
4 tablespoons grated parmesan
1 ½ croissants, whizzed in blender until reduced to crumbs

Before you start, make sure your croissants aren’t the kind with added vanilla essence. (It won’t necessarily be listed on the packaging, but it the wrapper says ‘flavouring’, don’t buy them.) You want to give a rich sweetness to the crust, not make it taste like patisserie.

Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the pack. Use something with a hollow shape which will hold sauce – I used the shell-shaped conchigle, but you might like to try fusili. At the same time, fry the bacon and shallots together over a high heat until the shallots are brown and sweet, and in a third pan use the butter, flour and milk to make a white (bechamel) sauce.

Turn the pasta, bacon (with its melted fat), shallots and corn from the can into the dish you will bake the pasta in. Melt the grated cheddar cheese into the bechamel with some salt, the soured cream, the nutmeg, mustard and cayenne pepper. Pour the sauce over the pasta mixture and stir to make sure everything is well mixed and coated, then sprinkle the croissant crumbs and parmesan over the top to make a light crust.

Bake at 180°C for 30 minutes, until the crumbs are golden and the sauce is bubbling around the edges of your baking dish.