DancerEats: Corn fritters!

As per usual, dance break is consumed with trying to find some semblance of organization in my house. While I was rifling through some papers on my kitchen counter I found a recipe that I had printed off a month or two ago: Corn fritters with roasted tomatoes and lime aioli.

“Hm,” thought I to myself. “I think I found my next weekend project!”

Trotted off to my favorite gourmet store to get the ingredients. Not that I needed to go to the gourmet store. That was purely to get me in the mood. Hey, atmosphere is everything! I got to mosey while sipping an impossibly tiny paper cup of coffee, listening to classical music, stopping to sniff boules and baguettes, all while feeling incredibly chic. The grouchy lady at the checkout snapped me out of whatever reverie I had drifted into, however. I guess not everyone is lulled into meditative bliss by the environment!

This afternoon I put on my figurative chef’s cap and sliced my vine-ripened tomatoes, drizzled them with olive oil and pepper and off into the oven for a long roast they went.

Then, fritter time! But first I had to get the kernels off the cob. I’ve never attempted that before. In my world corn comes from a bag in the freezer section. Or I eat it straight off the cob. I wondered to myself whether this exercise was truly necessary, but I’m a bit of a stickler when it comes to following directions, so I did it, meanwhile wondering if perhaps part of Cooking Light’s mission was to force the reader to get some exercise while preparing the food.

Dear reader, this step was Totally Necessary. Not only was I able to pretend to be a World-Famous TV Chef while dekerneling the cobs, but fresh corn is eminently delicious and I highly doubt that defrosted corn from the freezer would have tasted nearly as wonderful.

So, corn fritters are basically pancakes with corn and green onion and some black pepper thrown in. I love pancakes. My dream is to open an all-pancakes, all-the-time restaurant. I would definitely include these on the menu! Cooked those puppies up and conveniently ended up with a few more fritters than the recipe stated, so got to test the one from the first batch that didn’t flip properly and the last one that was too tiny to qualify as a Real Fritter. Yum. Something tells me I’m into something good!

Then for the lime aioli. “Aioli” is apparently the new trend in sauces and dressings. I see it everywhere. As far as I can tell, aioli is simply dressed-up mayonnaise. How soon until ranch dressing is no longer ranch dressing and instead becomes “Ranch aioli”? Whatever, I love mayonnaise, so I’m not really complaining… mayo with lime juice and garlic? Sure!

Once the tomatoes finished roasting (and man, do they shrink to puny proportions!) I grabbed some baby arugula the stacking began (side note: I saw Dame Edna perform, I dunno, some 10 years ago or so, and ever since I cannot think of arugula without saying to myself: “ah-RUUUUUUU-gula!”). Beware, this is a VERY precarious process. Mine flopped over quite unceremoniously before I could even snap one picture of my creation and after restacking and getting a shot it immediately toppled once more. No matter, still delicious.

But, oh!, I realized afterwards that I forgot the slice of prosciutto on top. Sadness prevails! Luckily there are plenty of leftovers to make a lunch tomorrow (and the next day) and we’ll try it with the prosciutto then.

As for the DancerEats analysis, well, I’d definitely put this in the healthy category (I mean, it did come from Cooking Light). Not only does one get to expend calories in the preparation, but this clocks in at a mere 284 calories per serving with 7.4 grams of fiber and 12.6 grams of protein. A light yet satisfying pre- or post-dance snack with lots of flavors to excite the taste buds!