Veggie Fritters (Gorengan)

Indonesians love fried stuffs. And I only learnt when I was 27 that it was not such a good thing. So I tried to reduce my consumption of fried foods ever since but not in an extreme way. Every once in a while I'll have fried foods or gorengan as we call it.

There is always something good in something bad, they say. And it's damn right.

So I decided to do my own gorengan. I made some adjustments that hopefully reduced the "badness" by using vegetables, less frying oil and no MSG. It tasted pretty good. I mean, gorengan is never that savoury snack dish. But it could make a good entree or simply a snack while watching rugby.

In this recipe, I was using white cabbage, green beans and carrots. All were leftovers from the salad the night before. You can make sweet dishes, too, using this batter and make pisang goreng (fried bananas), fried sweet cassava, etc. Just free yourself and experiment.

Ingredients:

• white cabbage, chop finely
• green beans, cut into small pieces
• carrot, grate
• 1 or 2 eggs depending how much veggies you are going to fry, whisk lightly
• all-purpose flour, just enough to thicken the batter to the right consistency
• salt and pepper
• some drops of water
• dried thyme, rosemary, etc. (optional)
• frying oil, just enough to cover half the height of battered fritters

Instructions:

1. Combined the whisked eggs, flour, salt, water and herbs into a bowl. Mix it into a pancake consistency.
2. Put the chopped vegetables into that bowl and mix well.
3. Heat the oil in a flat frying pan until it's pretty hot but not close to burning.
4. Spoon the batter and fry until it gets golden brown. You can fry some drops of spoonful batter in a batch.
5. Dry on kitchen paper and serve.