Spam Fritters

[Crazy Horse]

I have given you many threads on food, but now one that I feel will bring great debate.
More so than the MARMITE thread perhaps.

I give you Spam Fritters! (Renard, you will remember those I trust).
Staple diet when Mum had little money left to feed us, flipping marvellous!

Over to you chaps.......... ;D

[iandhunt]

What the hell is a Spam fritter? Is it literally the bastard child of Spam and a fritter?

[Crazy Horse]

Ingredients

1 tin Spam, cut into 10 mm (1/2" slices)
Oil for frying


Batter mix

60 g self-raising flour
1 egg, beaten

Splash of Guinness, bitter or if you must, milk and water mixed (about 35 to 40 ml of liquid is required)
Splash ofTabasco sauce (to taste)
Pinch of salt
A little plain flour

Method

Add all of the dry batter ingredients to a bowl, then whisking well, add just enough fluid (Guinness, bitter, or the milk/water mix) to make a thick batter. Add the egg and mix it in extremely well.
Rest the batter in the refrigerator for 20 minutes if you can
Dip each piece of spam in a saucer of plain flour and knock off any excess (this helps the batter mix to stick)
Dip each piece of spam in the batter
Heat a shallow frying pan with a little oil. When it has just started to smoke, reduce the heat a little and fry the fritters a few at a time for 3 minutes a side

Serving suggestions

Serve hot with baked beans, chips and Branston pickle, OK Sauce, or a smidgeon of MARMITE. ;D

[iandhunt]

will do......part chef, part pilot, part wise-man, part wise-arse.....always a pleasure.....

[Crazy Horse]

Ian,
I hope you enjoy these. The Guinness is essential!
I am part many things, mostly wise-arse. It is always so good to talk with you.

[renard80]

I was never very struck on Spam. OK in small doses.

This thread has reminded me of a delicacy we enjoyed in my youth. The recipe (if you can call it that!) was brought into the house by my brother during his national service in the Army. We dubbed it 'NAAFI Specials' (the NAAFI is a long-established organisation providing canteen and shop facilities for junior ranks in the British armed forces. Canteen cooks often improvised exotic dishes when ingredients were scarce).

As I recall, the process is simple. Make a jam (US = jelly) sandwich. Dip it into a bowl of beaten eggs until thoroughly coated. Then fry until the eggy mixture is cooked all yellow and lovely. Oh mother, please may I have another!

Kids of today don't know what they're missing! ;D

[hghost]

All we ever did was put in in a pan sliced it and put Ketchup on it and bake it in the oven for about 20 minutes or so to get it hot...either made sandwiches with it or mashed potatoes on the side and treated it like meatloaf.....most of the time we simply eat it like it was, because we had nothing to eat with it.......and did not wait to warm it up .......these days not that crazy about Spam....once in a great while I will eat it but not often.

[Crazy Horse]

To be perfectly honest, I haven't had one of theses for more than fifty years, since my dear old Mum used to make them.
As renard said, this comes from the war-time and subsequently continued on due to rationing still being in force.
Spam is an American product apparently invented in 1937.
I had Spam fritters about once a week when I was younger, so I think I have had my fair share, no more thank you.
BTW the splash of Guinness makes a real difference when making batter for other food.

[hounddog]

Ah Mystery Meat. General Eisenhower I think it was famously made a speech to the Hormel company employees at the end of the war.

He thanked them on behalf of the GI's for the Spam but asked them why they had to send so much of it.


When I was an apprentice tasked to go to the sarnie shop for the morning break, fried Spam and baked bean sarnie was my staple diet at work.
Sometimes beefed up by a half sausage and slice of bacon nicked a small piece at a time from everyone else's sarnies on the walk back to work.

Spam fritters - too sickly for me, reminds me of school dinners.

[iandhunt]

May 26, 2013 23:34:56 GMT 1 renard80 said:

As I recall, the process is simple. Make a jam (US = jelly) sandwich. Dip it into a bowl of beaten eggs until thoroughly coated. Then fry until the eggy mixture is cooked all yellow and lovely. Oh mother, please may I have another!

Kids of today don't know what they're missing! ;D

I think in the U.S. we categorize them the following way.

Jelly is a clear, bright product. It is generally made by cooking fruit juice and sugar with pectin as a jelling agent and lemon juice as an acid to maintain a consistent texture. Jelly is firm and will hold its shape. Generally, jelly contains no pieces of fruit, although specialty jellies, like pepper jelly, may include pieces of jalapeno or other pepper.

Jam is made from crushed or chopped fruit cooked with sugar, and often pectin and lemon juice. Jam can be a puree of fruit or have a soft pulp, but it does not contain chunks of fruit.

Now that it all cleared up! I had to learn how to make jam and jelly's in the fall up here since the abundance of cranberries, blueberries, strawberries and the like are too good to pass!

Eisenhower, OK commander, great politician, horrible foreign diplomat... giving the Russians Berlin is like giving a screaming, whiny, fat kid more candy to see if he will be quiet.

I also find it funny how Hawaii adopted Spam and now it is find in even "gourmet" food on the big island. I couldn't get my wife to touch Spam with a ten foot pole, let alone ingest the product.

[Crazy Horse]

That is because she is a very wise and discerning lady, as is Lady CH.

[iandhunt]

Perhaps we have more in common than I first realized! We both met wonderful women who are not only wise beyond their years, but eternally patient when it comes to our hobbies!

Aviation may be true passion, but we definitely found true love....or someone who is at least crazy like us!

[renard80]

May 29, 2013 16:34:45 GMT 1 iandhunt said:

Jelly is a clear, bright product. It is generally made by cooking fruit juice and sugar with pectin as a jelling agent and lemon juice as an acid to maintain a consistent texture. Jelly is firm and will hold its shape. Generally, jelly contains no pieces of fruit, although specialty jellies, like pepper jelly, may include pieces of jalapeno or other pepper.

Jam is made from crushed or chopped fruit cooked with sugar, and often pectin and lemon juice. Jam can be a puree of fruit or have a soft pulp, but it does not contain chunks of fruit.

Thanks for the lesson, Ian. I honestly believed that over there you didn't have 'jam', just 'jelly'.

Both of what you describe is what we call jam.

What we call jelly, you call jell-o (or so I believe). Dissolve gelatin powder or rubbery blocks of the stuff in hot water, pour into a mould and cool in the fridge, to be served as a dessert with ice cream and / or fruit.

Of course, the names 'jelly' and 'jell-o' derive from gelatin or gelling (setting).

Bloody hell, this board is getting more like Master Chef than Super Cub! Tomorrow, how to roast an ox . . . ;D

[Crazy Horse]

Renard,

Apparently, all one needs is a large oven capable of taking the ox on a spit, kitchen type servants to do the rest and a good appetite.
I wonder if there have ever been ox fritters? An idea to put to Cook perhaps?

[toff]

Oh my lord! Spam fritters! Secret weapon of the underpaid and under-appreciated! As a child of Buttershaw estate in Bradford ( watch the film, Rita, Sue and Bob too), that's where I grew up ( I watched What they were doing whilst they filmed it!)
Thank you, Crazy Horse! Forgotten about them. 30 years on I'm now smacking my lips and salivating! Guess what's for tea tomorrow? ( At mums, of course, no way I could make them like her! )