Over the weekend, I had the rare pleasure of hosting my parents and my sister and her husband for a night of New York City eating. After belatedly watching the latest season of Chef’s Table, they were separately inspired to eat at Ivan Ramen, somewhere I’d already been but hey, I’ll never say no to eating something delicious. After slurping through our giant bowls of broth and rye noodles, we all looked at each other…and wondered where we’d get dessert. See where I get my sweet tooth?
Piling into our second Uber XL of the evening, we headed back uptown to Tarallucci e Vino, a little Italian wine bar and café in my neighborhood that I find does reliable versions of just about everything. We ordered four desserts, two dessert wines because, why not, and got to work tasting and passing, as we do. Panna cotta, oozy chocolate cake, tiramisu and, the real underdog, goat cheese and sorbet. Which brings me to this recipe.
Something about the goat cheese combined with the sorbet really worked- the goat cheese was clearly whipped with some sugar, but it still had that familiar gamey taste, which paired extremely well with the sweet acid of raspberry sorbet. This recipe does something similar. Ricotta and goat cheese are whipped together with some sugar and flour to form a heavy batter and then dropped into a vat of hot oil to become better versions of themselves. Once golden, they’re blotted, topped with more ricotta, some quickly candied orange peel, orange syrup and a drizzle of honey, and eaten immediately.
These fritters are a little crispy, a little fluffy and fully delicious. If you make the syrup and batter ahead, they’d be super quick to drop in after dinner to serve for some lucky friends. They’d also be super quick to drop in and enjoy on a regular Tuesday with some Netflix. Whatever your sweet tooth dictates, we’ve got you covered.
Ingredients
- 350g ricotta, plus 120g to finish
- 60g caprino goat’s cheese, or another soft goat’s cheese
- 3 eggs
- 4 tablespoons milk
- 1½ tablespoons fresh mint, finely chopped
- Grated zest of 1 orange
- 160g plain flour, possibly more
- 1½ teaspoons baking powder
- 50g caster sugar
- About 700ml sunflower oil, for frying
- 4 tablespoons honey, warmed slightly for drizzling
- Icing sugar, for dusting
- Salt
- 1 whole orange
- 100g caster sugar
Instructions
- Start by making the orange syrup. Peel the orange with a sharp paring knife taking care to only get the orange skin but not the white pith. Slice the skin into julienne (thin strips). Place the sugar and 100ml of water in a small saucepan and place on medium heat, stirring until the sugar has dissolved. Gently simmer for 3 to 4 minutes. Add the orange strips and continue cooking for another 2 minutes. Remove from the heat and leave the orange strips to cool down in the syrup.
- Beat 350 grams of ricotta with the goat’s cheese and eggs until fairly smooth. Whisk in the milk, mint and orange zest and set aside.
- In a separate bowl mix together the flour, baking powder, sugar and ¼ of a teaspoon of salt. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients to form a batter, adding more flour if necessary, until you reach a dropping consistency. Set aside for 10 minutes to rest.
- Heat a small heavy-based saucepan with enough sunflower oil so it rises approximately 4 centimeters up the side of the pan. When the oil is medium-hot (180C), gently drop heaped teaspoons of the batter into the oil and cook for 3 to 4 minutes, turning occasionally, until golden-brown. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. Continue with the remaining batter.
- Pile the fritters onto individual plates and drizzle over the warmed honey. Top with a dollop of ricotta and dust with icing sugar. To finish, spoon orange strips and some of the syrup on top of the ricotta and serve at once.
Notes
From Plenty More
