Sweetcorn Fritters

I love El Piano in York. It's a vegan, gluten and nut free restaurant and is the one place in the world (other than their branch in Spain) where I can eat everything on the menu without thinking about it twice. Which would be great in itself, but when you add in that the food is tapas style, spans the world in its influences and the setting is a funky, upbeat and casual restaurant you have a recipe for a very happy me. On a recent visit with non-veggie, non-coeliac friends who love the place too, my SO bought me the El Piano cookbook. Glee! It's a great book for cooks (it assumes you know how to make basic food already) packed full of simple recipes for some of the tastiest food on the planet. Since I've had it, I've made dinner from it multiple times but its been so good I haven't paused to take pictures or blog about it! We ate butternut squash curry and coconuty dhal, we've had aubergine bake (with tomato, pepper and fennel sauce) and today for lunch we had sweetcorn fritters.

Like the other recipes, this one is nice and simple. You whizz up a tin of sweetcorn, in its juice, in a food processor then add chilli, chopped onion, sugar (which I think you could probably cut down on the recipe quantity) and polenta to make patties which are deep fried til golden. We ate them with a salad and some sweet chilli dipping sauce which was a great combo. I was scaling down the recipe and guestimated the amount of sugar, but think I would probably drop it a little lower next time around as they were a bit too 'cakey' in their sweetness for my taste. Made in less than 20 minutes though!

The book itself is bright and colourful, and written in a casual style. Each page is a recipe which is written in a step format rather than the usual ingredients then method style. Most recipes are 4 or 5 steps. One thing I love about El Piano is how packed with flavour all their dishes are, and looking at the recipes has taught me a few new techniques that I've already taken elsewhere.

The recipe book is available from their website or the restaurant itself.

Chickpea fritters with tikka sauce

I love chickpeas.  They're substantial and comforting, warming and filling and go well with the other flavours I like to eat.  Tomatoes, aubergines, garlic, harissa paste.  Mmmm.  So when I was leafing through the New Cranks Cookbook this was one that popped out at me for trying.  Now chickpeas aren't a problem, because I love them they are ever present in my store cupboard in both dried and tinned forms however I didn't have any soy yoghurt for the tikka sauce.  I did however have a jar of Meridian Dairy and Gluten Free Tikka Massala sauce so I decided to use that instead.

The basic recipe was for 6 so I halved quantities but it still made enough patties for 4 (unless you're a very big eater!) served with pilau rice.  It was a good meal but would I think have been better paired with some pitta bread and a green salad.  I soaked 4 ounces of dried chickpeas overnight in water, then blitzed them in the food processor for about 15 seconds until they were grainy, then transferred them into another bowl.  I then put a (drained and rinsed) tin of chickpease into the processor with the juice of a lime and a tablespoon of the tikka cause and whizzed them until they were mostly mushed.  That went into the bowl with the dried chickpeas, some diced red onion and it was mixed together and left to stand for 20  minutes to let the flavours mingle. I then formed patties (it made about 10) which I shallow fried on a mediumish heat for a few minutes a side until they were golden brown.

Oh but these were good!  Deliciously crisp and nutty on the outside, and temptingly soft on the inside.  The tikka sauce was a great match (though home made would be a million times better!) and with the rice it was a filling meal.  They were also great cold the next day!  Not so dry as a falafel but not quite a veggie burger either.  They're a part of my repertoire now!