Author Notes: Santorini is an arid volcanic island. The tomatoes which grow on the island are essentially dry farmed so the results are small very intense flavored tomatoes. A friend who rents a house on Santorini took us to his favorite haunts which includes the little seaside restaurants of Amoudi. My favorite was Katina and my favorite dish was her tomato fritters. I (we) tried all the other restaurants and agreed hers were the best! I complimented her and then followed her into her kitchen where she showed me the batter and her ingredients(all in Greek so I guessed all amounts and this is the resulting recipe). She spoke no English and I , no Greek ,so it took a little trial and error to figure out her recipe, like, that she used either self rising flour or put baking powder in her batter. The addition of fresh mint was what made hers different from all the others. This recipe is all about the flavor of the tomatoes. If you can’t find flavorfull, ripe , in season tomatoes, don’t bother to make this recipe! These are delicious with tzatziki which is a sauce made of yogurt, cucumber , garlic and mint. ******Please note! You must use very intensely flavored tomatoes. This year I pretty much dry farmed my tomatoes and it made a huge difference in their flavor. I suppose if you need to you can add some tomato paste to add more flavor for this recipe. —dymnyno
Makes: about 12 fritters or many more little bites
/cd65c678-3c2a-4413-ac72-b7675b66db26--restaurant8.jpg "SANTORINI TOMATO FRITTERS 2")
1 of 2
/cd739b78-2edd-47a3-be08-bde67026b66d--L1000574.jpg "SANTORINI TOMATO FRITTERS 3")
2 of 2
0SANTORINI TOMATO FRITTERS
Print RecipeIngredients
- 2 lbs red tomatoes, diced
- 1 cup yellow onion, finely diced
- 4 tbs fresh mint, finely chopped
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- oil for frying, I use grape oil, it needs to be very hot and not smoking
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
Instructions
Dice the tomatoes and put them in a colander over a bowl to drain (save the liquid). I save the liquid and add it back because I don’t know how juicy any tomato is.
In a large bowl, put the tomatoes, mint, onion and half the flour. Make a slurry with the rest of the flour and the baking powder. (add about 1/2 cup of the tomato juice)
Add the slurry into the mixture The mix will be about the consistency of heavy batter.
In a saute pan put about 1 inch of grapeseed oil and heat.
When very hot, spoon the mixture into the oil and cook until golden. Turn and repeat on the other side. They should be very crispy and cooked all the way through.
Drain on paper towels and spritz with fresh lemon juice. Or, I serve them with Greek yoghurt.
Eat hot!
****I drain the tomatoes and then add back the liquid as needed so that the mixture will be consistent whether the tomatoes are very juicy or not.Santorini tomatoes are small and flavorful but not real juicy because of the arid conditions in which they grow.
This recipe was entered in the contest for A&M Smackdown / Your Best Tomato Recipe
This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best Recipe with Mint
This recipe was entered in the contest for Your Best One-Bite Party Snack
