Rubber Chicken (7) Fritters
Ages ago now, I started a Rubber Chicken feature, conjuring a total of 28 portions from 1 x £4.99 chicken. These fritters are part of that and are the penultimate recipe, still one more to go!
Pick all the meat from the chicken carcass, then put it in a pan with some water to cover and simmer very gently for a couple of hours. Slowly, slowly, it wants to barely blip. A slow cooker would be good for this. Then leave to cool. Pour off and save the stock. Now, have another go at the carcass. You should be able to get another 100g of meat scraps. This 100g is what is used in these fritters.
The original chicken cost £4.99 and yielded a total of 654g of chicken from the scavenged carcass. All the recipes have been priced using this sum, so you could say the chicken in these are free as the 654g doesn’t count this 100g! Or just use £4.99/654g for the 100g of meat used here. If I don’t do that, I’m going to have to go back and recalculate all the recipes using 754g instead of 654g. Not going to happen!
Variations on chicken fritters
Obviously, the veg you have with these can be anything you have. Roasted carrots and onions; beetroot, roasted with thyme or rosemary; peas; green beans, maybe mixed with a splash of olive oil and some fine chopped hazlenuts; runner beans from the garden, maybe cooked in a tomato sauce; sliced fresh tomatoes; carrots grated and mixed with raisins; coleslaw or any of the many variations on that; the very fashionable courgetti; stir fried veg; etc etc
Serve with a spicy tomato sauce, or ketchup; a sauce made with cream cheese flavoured with garlic and chives; melted butter; hollandaise; tartare sauce; mayo or salad cream; satay sauce – see the peanutty noodles recipe for a nice one
You could flavour the mash with fine chopped rosemary, thyme, dill or sage; add pickle (I love Pataks Brinjal pickle), home made, Branston etc; add a little cheese, or add it to the dusting flour; or use breadcrumbs, seasoned with herbs, spices or cheese; dust with a little garam masala or any other spice you like; add some chilli; fry the fritters in bacon fat, ghee, dripping or mustard oil.
Change the chicken for scraps of ham; a bit of cooking bacon cooked until crispy; trimmings from a beef or pork joint
In other words, these little fritters are a great jumping off point for all kinds of delicious meals. Improvise, free wheel and invent!
Ingredients
- 100 g chicken
- 200 g potatoes
- 100 g onion
- 1 tsp oil to fry onion
- 1 tblsp oil to fry patties 1p
- 1 tblsp flour to coat
Serve with
- 200 g white cabbage
- 1 tblsp oil
- 2 tblsps soy sauce
Instructions
- Peel and chop the onion and saute in a little oil until transparent.
- Meanwhile, peel the potatoes and boil until cooked through. Mash the potatoes well.
- Mix in the onion and the chicken. Season well with salt and pepper.
- Shape into 4 patties. Dust with flour and set aside.
- While the cabbage (below) is cooking - heat another tblsp of oil in a frying pan and gently cook the patties until golden. Gently flip them over and do the other side. They will be quite fragile.
To Serve
- Chop the white cabbage into shreds and saute in the oil until soft.
- Add the soy sauce and cook until the soy sauce is just a coating on the cabbage.
Equipment Needed
Notes
Got a great recipe? How about submitting it to appear on Thrifty Lesley!
That sounds delicious! I’m so glad you are finding it useful. I’ve never had the confidence to pick mushrooms – eek!
Hi, your recipes really help a lot and those fritters are awesome! Thank you!
If you want to use potato peel as well , I recommend Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall‘s potato peel soup, was saving the peels for a while some carrot and parsnip peels too . Have some wood-picked home dried mushrooms so chucked them in as well and the pot made good 10 portions-depends how much peel you have or if you add any leftover veg you can twist it whichever way you like, veg peels are main ingredient. And it tasted great too