Potato and leek fritters with whipped feta and spiced honey

When this corona crisis started about a month to four years ago, we started doing this thing during the work week where we’d agree to eat something light and healthy for lunch. Like a soup, or a salad. Generally I’m a good sport and follow along with this “agreement” we made, but I’m not gonna lie, it has been fun to test the limits of what constitutes a salad. With a veggie count of no less than two if you count potato, or three if you count dill, I can confirm that we did it again folks.

Ingredients #

Ingredients for 2:

• 75gr feta
• 3 heaping tablespoons of greek yoghurt
• 2 tablespoons of honey
• 1 teaspoon chili flakes
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds
• 1 teaspoon cumin seeds
• 5 medium sized potatoes
• 1 leek
• 1 egg
• Vegetable oil (or any neutral oil with a high smoking point)
• Dill
• Black pepper
• Salt

Method #

1. Blend the feta and yoghurt together, and season with plenty of black pepper and salt to taste. Put this aside for now.

2. In a small sauce pan or non stick skillet heat up a little bit of oil (olive, neutral, no matter) and add your chili flakes, fennel seeds and cumin seeds to the oil. Fry your spices until they become fragrant, then turn off the heat and stir your honey through (if you have honey that’s very thick just heat it up gently right before plating to make it easy to drizzle). Set aside for now.

3. Grate your potatoes using a box grater or a food processor with the grating attachment. Put your grated potato on a clean kitchen towel, fold it over and try to squeeze as much liquid out of your potatoes as possible. For Ben Stiller wetness might be the essence of beauty, but for fritters it is not.

4. Once your potatoes have had the life squeezed out of them, add them to a bowl with one large egg. Thinly slice the leek in half rings and add that to the bowl too. Season generously with salt and pepper, give it a good mixing, and set aside for now.

5. In a large cast iron skillet start heating up the vegetable (or other neutral) oil. You’ll want quite a layer of oil in your pan. We’re not really deep frying the fritters, but we’re close. A layer of about 0.5/1cm deep is great.
   Test if your oil is hot with a small piece of potato, if it starts to sizzle immediately you're in bizniz.

6. In your hands make small patties from your potato/leek mixture and CAREFULLY place them in the skillet. Don’t overcrowd your skillet, not only will that prevent the fritters from getting crispy (which is prio#1) it’ll also be a pain to try and flip them.

7. With a spatula you can press the patties down in the pan to thin them out. The thinner and flatter you make them the crispier they’ll get! Sure, they will fall apart a little bit. While they fry they’ll stick together better and better, and to be fair buried under a cloud of creamy whipped feta no one's gonna notice a messy patty.

8. Fry crispy on both sides, you’ll want a deep golden brown color here, which will take a little time. Probably a minute of 5/7 on each side. When your fritters are golden brown and done, season them with salt and get ready to plate!

9. Put what you feel like is an appropriate amount of fritters on your plate, slather them in your creamy feta, drizzle the spiced honey on top, and finish with some chopped dill and freshly ground pepper.

If you’re looking forward to a weekend with a brunch window I’d say the stars have just aligned for you. There is no hangover this one can’t cure.