Corn Fritters with Ham

By Gail Foley

Every weekend morning, I cook breakfast. Well, if I am not working. The first thing I hear from my son, Thomas, is “Cook eggs?”, if I am not already cooking them when he wakes up. Which is late as usual.

This morning, I had memories of my Grandma Main and the corn fritters she made us as children. They were light, with lots of corn and egg and a little bit of flour to hold them together. We drenched them in butter and syrup. Yummy!

I had not made them in many years and looked up some recipes to refresh my memory. I remembered that there were two main types – northern and southern. One was doughy and one was mostly egg. Since Grandma is from Mackinac Island in northern Michigan, I would guess that the northern ones are mostly egg.

My recipe search yielded lots of recipes, southern, northern, Canadian, and southwest variations but nothing like Grandma’s. So I just had at it. I figured about an egg per ½ cup of corn with a little milk to make the egg fluffy.  I added a generous tablespoon of flour for each egg and put in some baking powder to keep the flour light. I added some diced ham, because my guys like meat with their eggs. I fried them in corn oil to enhance the corn flavor.

They turned out like Grandma’s fritters, with ham! Delicious!

Yield: 6 fritters

4 large eggs

2 Tbsp. milk

1 pint corn kernels, drained

Salt and pepper

1/3 cup flour

½ tsp. baking powder

½ cup thinly sliced deli ham, diced (6 small slices or 2 oz.)

Corn oil

Butter

Maple syrup

Preheat oven to 250°F to keep fritters warm. Line cookie sheet with paper towels to drain fritters.

Heat large skillet (preferably cast iron or heavy stainless steel, heavy aluminum in a pinch) hot and dry. Remove from heat and lightly coat with canola oil spray. Return to very low heat while preparing batter.

Put eggs and milk in 8 cup mixing bowl and whisk together.

Add corn, salt and pepper, flour and baking powder in order listed. Fold together with large spoon until all is moistened. Crumble in ham and fold several times until evenly distributed.

Put about a ¼ inch of oil in skillet and turn up heat. When a drop of batter sizzles instantly, place a 1/3 cup of batter in skillet for each fritter. Hopefully, the skillet is large enough to hold three fritters easily. Shake some more pepper over them. Fry at medium heat until nicely browned on bottom. Turn fritters over and brown other side, a few minutes for each side. Remove to paper towels and put in oven to keep warm. Repeat with rest of batter.

To serve, put one or two fritters on a plate. Top with a dollop of butter and a good splash of syrup. Enjoy!