Name: Crab and sweetcorn fritters
Prep time: 18 min
Total time: 22 min
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients: 2 pack Crab meat (tinned); 1 pack Sweetcorn (tinned); 90 g Plain flour; 10 g Onion (dried, flakes); 3 g Chilli flakes; 15 ml Lemon juice (bottled); 50 ml Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed); 2 g Black pepper (ground); 3 g Salt (fine)

Crab and sweetcorn fritters

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Plain flour.

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves

Burners

Pans

Water

0.05 L

Active

18 min

Total

22 min

Ingredients

Crab meat (tinned) 2 pack
Sweetcorn (tinned) 1 pack
Plain flour 90 g
Onion (dried, flakes) 10 g
Chilli flakes 3 g
Lemon juice (bottled) 15 ml
Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed) 50 ml
Black pepper (ground) 2 g
Salt (fine) 3 g

Tinned crab is expensive per gram and worth it about twice a trip. This is the dish that makes two small tins feed two people properly.

Drain everything hard. Crab and sweetcorn both carry a lot of water and wet batter will not hold. Press the crab in a sieve or against the tin lid.
Flour, dried onion, chilli, salt and pepper in a bowl. Water added a spoon at a time to a very thick paste, thicker than you think, about the consistency of wallpaper paste.
Corn and crab folded in.
Oil hot. Spoonfuls in, flattened slightly. Four minutes before turning, and turn once only.
Lemon over them as they come out.

If the first one falls apart, add a spoon of flour to the mix rather than trying to rescue that fritter. The batter is nearly always too wet rather than too dry.

Serves 2.

What this was adapted from

Thai and Southeast Asian corn fritters, bound into patties and shallow fried

egg as the binder → flour and a little water into a thick batter

Eggs are the obvious binder and they do not keep. A stiff flour batter holds the fritter together, though it needs more careful handling in the pan and gives a denser result.
fresh coriander and spring onion → dried onion and chilli flakes

The fresh herbs are the bright top note of the original and there is no replacing them. What is left is the corn, the crab and the heat, which is still worth eating.