The French Cafe's favourite sweetcorn fritters

The French Cafe's sweetcorn fritters. Picture / Charlie Smith.

Simon Wright shares a recipe from his inspiring new cookbook Saison - A Year at the French Cafe.

For this Kiwi favourite I use only fresh corn, grating half the cobs to make my own creamed corn. The result is a sweetcorn fritter that really tastes of sweetcorn, with great texture and all that natural sweetness. I like to fold through some diced crayfish meat to give them a more luxurious feel.

SWEETCORN FRITTERS
Serves 6 as a canape

For the basil salt

Preheat the oven to 60°C / 125°F. Place the basil and sea salt in a food processor and pulse together until you have a green crumb-like consistency. Spread the basil salt on a tray and dehydrate for 3 hours or until the salt is dry. Allow the basil salt to cool. Pulse to a fine powder in a spice grinder and store in an airtight container until required.

• 50g / 2oz basil leaves
• 50g / 2oz sea salt

For the lemon mayonnaise

Place the egg yolks, mustard, lemon juice and a pinch of salt into a food processor, and blend together. With the motor still running slowly add the oils followed by the water. Check the seasoning and place in the fridge until required.

• 2 egg yolks
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• Juice of 2 lemons
• 125ml / 4.5fl oz olive oil
• 75ml / 2.5fl oz lemon-scented olive oil
• 30ml / 1fl oz hot water

For the sweetcorn fritters

Remove the kernels from two of the sweetcorn by holding the cobs upright with your hand and running the blade of a sharp knife down the sides. Grate the two remaining sweetcorn on the largest blade of a grater into a small bowl, add the sweetcorn kernels, the remaining ingredients and a pinch of sea salt. Gently fold the mixture together.

• 4 fresh sweetcorn, husks removed
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• 4 tbsp flour
• 200g / 7oz raw chopped crayfish meat (optional)

To finish

Heat the deep-fryer to 160°C / 320°F. Using a tablespoon, spoon the sweetcorn fritter mixture into the deep-fryer in batches of six and cook for about 2 minutes or until golden brown, drain on absorbent paper and keep warm. Repeat until all the sweetcorn mixture has been fried and serve immediately with the lemon mayonnaise and basil salt on the side.

• This recipe is from Saison - A Year at the French Cafe by Simon Wright, launching tomorrow (Random House NZ, $95). Read our interview with Simon in tomorrow's Viva, and get a signed copy of the book from thefrenchcafe.co.nz

- VIVA