Weekday evening time has been at a premium lately and this lack of midweek 15 minute meals is putting my challenge in serious peril. Today I had to get up at 5:30 for an early start at work so wasn't exactly feeling top of my game. So surely I'd choose a meal which was a guaranteed winner right? Err, no - I handed meal choice responsibilities to Lolz who chose a mushroom heavy veggie number which looked like it could easily go wrong.
I started off by weighing out the ingredients - 25g of dried mushrooms is a lot more than it sounds. I let them stew away in some boiling water and tried to ignore the smell. I must admit I have been getting a bit cocky when it comes to measuring weights and volume and have started to trust my instincts rather than create additional washing up by using the scales (Lolz: you're welcome ;). I may have been a bit out though when I measured the ricotta - I ended up with a lot of fritter mixture. Spooning it into the frying pan, it more resembled one large pancake than 8 small ones. The individual fritters must have been too big as by the time the bottom was cooked, the middle was still quite liquidy. Flipping them, therefore, required certain abilities which would defy the laws of physics. The sauce was straightforward enough as was the salad, even though I had to grate the courgette manually.
There were several things wrong with this dish. The fritters were too fragile. probably because the centres were not sufficiently cooked. The salad was too wet - grating courgettes creates a lot of liquid which really needs to be drained off before you add the dressing. And the mushrooms were just wrong. Overall though I couldn't help but think there was a bit of potential here - the fritters in the book look really appetizing, while the sauce without the mushrooms would have been a nice putanesca. The salad could do with another ingredient maybe to pad it out a bit, but would have been nice without the excess liquid.
Lolz gave the dish 6/10 - she didn't like the nutmeg in the fritters. Difficulty rating 5/10.
When I made this one, I found the fritters were too loose to flip as well. I did them in two batches, so on the second batch I added more flour to firm them up and that helped a lot. As for the courgette salad, I always find it easier (and more pleasant to eat) if I shave the courgettes with a speed peeler, rather than grating them.
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