Ricotta Fritters, Tomato Sauce & Courgette Salad

Hi!

Yesterday was a feast for mine and my family's taste buds, so today it's a feast for my blog.
I made two recipes on Sunday which absolutely drained me, and so will the two blogposts I am about to write. 
I made the recipe you can see in the title, and the "Lamb Meatballs, Chop Salad & Harissa Yoghurt" which can be seen in the blog post ahead, or on page 104. 
The reason behind this is that the ricotta fritters, sauce and salad weren't enough for a Sunday meal for four, and I happened to have some minced lamb, so I went on a hunt for a second small-ish recipe I could make. 
Now, I did make these two meals parallel, because my kitchen is small (hence not a lot of pots and pans or stoves) and because I wanted to eat both at the same time. So excuse me if I get a little bit mixed up because I was doing a bit of this, and then that.
This is what I came up with for recipe uno:

This is a fairly simple recipe with very few ingredients, which you can actually make in 15 minutes, in my opinion. 

I firstly put the dried porcini mushrooms into boiling water to rehydrate, and started on the fritters.

I added the egg, ricotta, nutmeg, lemon zest, parmesan and flour and beat it together until I got a dough-like consistency. 

I set that aside to firm up a bit, and proceeded to the sauce. Here I added olive oil to my pan, dried chili and squashed garlic to fry away a bit, and then went in with the finely chopped porcini and half the soaking water and passata. You also add in some black olives without the stone and basil leaves to your liking. I left that to boil, and when it did, I seasoned with salt and pepper. 

While that was cooking away, I grated my courgettes and dressed with lemon juice, salt and pepper and olive oil. The chili and mint went in later, because this way they could stick to the dressing after I tossed it together. 

My sauce was cooking away on low heat for me to have time to fry the fritters, which was now. 

I put a tablespoon of oil in the pan, after Jamie's directions, which I found wasn't enough in the long run, but better add it along the way as opposed to your initial fritters drowning in oil.

I alternated between small and big ones, and don't worry, they will stick to the bottom at first, but just gently scrub the bottom with a spatula when you are about to turn them and they will retain their original crispy bottom.

Also, cooking on low heat for firstly, the oil not to burn, and secondly, because you will be able to control the color of your fritters.

By now my sauce had boiled, the last of my fritters were frying and the salad was in a nice bowl - I was set! 

 Here are some close-ups of the sauce and fritters, arranged after Jamie's recommendations: 

And here is his serving suggestion:

One of the rare 15 Minute Meals, if you want something light and quick on a working day, this is it! To achieve this recipe, you will need:

Ingredients out * Kettle boiled * Large frying pan, medium heat* Large casserole pan, low heat * Food processor (fine grater)*

Serves 4, 408 calories 

Ingredients

Sauce 

25g dried porcini mushrooms

optional: 4 anchovy fillets 

1 dried red chili

2 cloves of garlic

700g passata 

8 black olives (stone in)

1/2 bunch of fresh basil

Fritters

1 large egg

400g ricotta cheese

1 whole nutmeg, for grating

1 lemon

40g Parmesan cheese

1 heaped tbsp plain flour

olive oil

balsamic vinegar

Salad

400g firm green or yellow baby courgettes

1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

1 fresh red chili

1/2 bunch of fresh mint

1 lemon 

Start cooking

Put the porcini into a mug and cover with boiling water. Crack the egg into a mixing bowl, add the ricotta, finely grate 1/4 of the nutmeg, the lemon zest and Parmesan, add the flour, then beat together. Put 1 tablespoon of olive oil into the frying pan, then use a tablespoon to spoon in 8 large dollops of the mixture, turning carefully when nice and golden.

Put the anchovies (if using) and 1 tablespoon of olive oil into the casserole pan, crumble in the dried chili, and squash in the unpeeled garlic through a garlic crusher. Finely chop and add the porcini with half their soaking water and the passata, season with salt and pepper and bring to the boil. Squash and add the olives, discarding the stones. Pick and reserve a few basil leaves, then chop the rest and add to the sauce. 

Grate courgettes in the processor (you could use a box grater here) and tip into a bowl with a pinch of salt and pepper, the juice of the zested lemon and the extra virgin olive oil. Finely chop and add the chili and the top leafy half of the mint, then toss together. Place the fritters on top of the sauce, then scatter over the reserved basil leaves, drizzle with balsamic and serve with lemon wedges. 

Note: This recipe was taken straight out of the cookbook, my version is written above. 

Bon Appétit!