Brent’s inability to fully review and select a recipe and realize it’s complexity struck again. This one required a new purchase and frying! I suck at frying. This week he picked Black-Eyed Pea Fritters from Vegan Soul Kitchen.
The making of this recipe required me buying a new kitchen appliance (not that I mind). 
I bought a tiny 3 cup food processor and pulsed the batter together. I have a really random fact — the whole time I was mixing it together I kept telling Brent that it smelled like coleslaw. Weird, I know. Nothing in the ingredient list screams coleslaw to me, but whatevs. However, when Brent was preparing to fry the batter he also commented on the coleslaw smell.
Because my new food pro cost less than a meal at a fast food restaurant, I wasn’t expecting a ton in terms of quality so I wasn’t surprised that my batter did not get super smooth, but it definitely got into the “close enough” category. Overall the mixing wasn’t difficult, but it took a bit of time because I constantly had to stop and scrape the food pro and remix the batter. The recipe calls for the batter to be refrigerated for at least an hour, but to make dinner quicker, I just prepared it the day before. I shaped the fritters, but let Brent do the frying.
The recipe calls for five cups of coconut oil for frying, but that seemed waaayyyy too expensive (the jar I bought was $9 for 2 cups!), so we just used canola oil. In about 4 minutes we had super browned and crispy fritters.
I did not make the hot pepper sauce to go along side these. Instead I just used some Country Bob’s All Purpose Sauce and Brent used sriracha!!
So… the overall consensus on these fritters was, to quote my husband, “a less flavorful hushpuppy.” I actually liked these, but I agree they could definitely use more flavor. Probably the accompanying hot pepper sauce makes up for that, but I could have used some spice and flavor in the fritters themselves. I asked Brent if they were a make again and his response was, “Probs not dude. Might as well just make hushpuppies instead.”
I have another recipe I’m making from the book tomorrow, so we’ll see if it helps me solidify an opinion on Vegan Soul Kitchen. Have a great holiday weekend everyone!
6 Comments
May 23, 2009 at 4:23 am
oh Victoria – your dishes always look delicious!
May 23, 2009 at 8:43 am
They LOOK delicious . . . sorry they were just “meh.”
May 23, 2009 at 9:02 am
Those look fantastic! You are very brave to fry… I’ve never done it!
May 23, 2009 at 1:18 pm
I’ve never had any sort of fritter so those look great to me! Sorry the taste wasn’t that great!
May 23, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Oh wow, those look great!
May 28, 2009 at 11:06 pm
that’s too bad the fritters weren’t too good. maybe some tweaking to the recipe? they look awesome though!