Get out the frying pan: squid (or fish) fritters

Can we all admit, ragazzi, that we LOVE fried food?  Yes, we do. We know it's not good for us, we know we shouldn't eat it. But it's good.  As Annalena has posted before, many people have said that "if you deep fry it, people will eat it."  The sense of crunch, the carmelization, it all works together.

And so, ragzzi, with POST NUMBER 800!!!!, Annalena wants to challenge you to make something you think you won't like:  she wants you to cook squid.

OK, enough with the EWWWWW.  You eat fried calamari, don't you? Hmmm?  Well, this is easier. And it tastes better.  If you have yourself a good old food processor, you can do this in less than 30 minutes.  Promesso.  And if you REALLY do not feel up to the squid challenge, you can use another white type fish: you can use skate (ENOUGH WITH THE EWWWWS.   You are NOT helping), you can use flounder, or cod, or anything along these lines.  You can use shrimp, or scallops, but why would you?  Stick away from the muscle type fish (let's review:  these are:  tuna and swordfish, marlin, that kind of thing).  In fact, you could probably use canned salmon for this (that's for you, Bobby D), and then  you don't need the food processor.

Ok, you take your fish, and you cut it into small pieces.  Put it in the food processor, and pulse it until it's chopped up.  Don't worry about surgical precision.   Dump it into a bowl, and then, in the same food processor, add half of a green pepper, cut up, half of a red one, also cut,  a bunch of chopped scallions or , even better, a few spring onions,  and a few stems of cilantro.  Pulse these, too, and put them in with the fish.  Add an egg, stir it all together, and put it aside.    Put your processor away, because you don't need it anymore.   (If you like things spicy, put some jalapenos in there, too)

Now, in a separate bowl, mix up a cup and a half of plain, all purpose white flour, a teaspoon of baking powder, a pinch of "something hot," be it chili powder,  cayenne, etc.    Add half a teaspoon of salt.

Now, you need something carbonated. Beer is preferred.  If you are off the sauce,  use plain seltzer.  Pour half a cup of it into the fish mixture, stir it together, and then stir  another half cup into the flour and mix it up.  The flour will clump up horribly.  Worry not.  You stir this all into the fish mixture, and you will wind up with a thick, wet batter.

Now, get a big pan, and fill it with about 3/4 cup of oil.  Start heating the oil as you set up a couple of baking sheets with paper towels, and turn your oven to 200.

After, oh, 3-4 minutes, start dolloping tablespoons of the mixture in the oil.  Keep an eye on them.  You'll see browning happening on the edges, sooner than you think.   Try to get a feel for how long that took,  because that's how long you're going to cook them after you flip these guys,  using a pancake turner or something like that.  All in all, you'll spend about five minutes doing this.  Transfer them to the paper towels (you'll be making about six at a time), and when you fill the baking sheet,  put it in the oven.

Keep working.  You'll get somewhere between 24-30 of these by the time you're done.

Didn't sound hard, did it? Because it's not .  To serve them, mitigate your evils by putting them on some fresh lettuce leaves.  You need sauce with these .Annalena added insult to injury by adding hot sauce to mayonnaise, instead of the recommended tartar sauce, but you know that you can use anything that sounds good to you.

Try them with squid, ragazzi.  It is cheap, it's plentiful, and Annalena PROMISES  you won't know it's squid if you didn't make them.  But if you try this with different fish, please drop Annalena a note and let her knw what you did.

800 posts. What a long, strange trip it's been.