Ottolenghi Cauliflower Fritters with Lime Yogurt

My parents in law visited today and we ate a Middle Eastern style meal from Ottolenghi: The Cookbook.  I am continuing to work my way through all the recipes that appeal to me before their second book “Plenty” comes out later this month. I’ve done around eight savoury recipes mostly from the pulses and vegetables section now but apart from two batches of macarons haven’t even started on the baked stuff.

As predicted, this Easter weekend the weather was wet. We went to Bath and got so drenched that we might as well have been in one. On Saturday we went to Canary Wharf to take Ted riding up and down on the Docklands Light Railway then yesterday we went to Cambridge and wandered about in a bemused state because everything was shut. Next year I vow to book a trip somewhere sunny!

The recipe for cooking these fritters says to fry them in 1.5cm of oil, anything which creeps towards deep frying scares me. Having tried it and discovered that like pancakes, they worked best when the pan was really hot towards the end of cooking, I think next time I would try frying them with far less oil and using my cast iron omelette pan. I’m not convinced the depth of oil really achieved anything other than spitting fat and me hopping about with hot spots on my wrists.

How do you spell yoghurt by the way? It’s one of my spelling blind spots, I always used to spell it yoghurt with an “h” but then noticed that pots in the supermarket said “yogurt” so dropped the “h”. The Ottolenghi book spells yoghurt with an “h” so I feel vindicated after years worrying I’d spelled (or is it spelt… another blind spot) it incorrectly. A quick visit to Wikipedia has set my mind at rest that both are acceptable in the UK.

But you don’t care about that. How do they taste? Crisp, mildly spicy and although I never would have thought to pair cauliflower with lime, it works beautifully.