Fritto Misto

As I said in my previous post, I love fried food, so I will look for any reason or occasion to fry something. For example “Oh, it’s Tuesday, I should fry some broccoli” or “Oh, the mail didn’t come yet, better fry some string beans.” And no, this is not much of an exaggeration for me. I just really like my fried food. Which brings us to my Fritto Misto. (This is a dish of pieces of meat, seafood or vegetable dipped in a light batter and fried.)

I am so excited to be going back to Italy for Christmas. We will be going to Rome, Florence and Parma. I can’t wait to explore even more of the beauty and culture that the city has to offer and eat more of the glorious food. That includes getting a platter of Fritto Misto once a day (I’m not kidding)

The inspiration for this dish came the other day when I was deciding what to make for dinner. I had some nice whole wheat penne with pesto leftover, but I knew that wouldn’t be enough for a complete meal. I looked in the refrigerator and saw some zucchini, asparagus and yellow peppers. LIGHTBULB OVER HEAD MOMENT!! I also had enough ingredients to make the same light and luscious batter that I made for the zucchini the other night. So, I decided to fry all of these vegetables, which gives you….the Fritto Misto.

Fritto Misto

10 stalks of asparagus
 2 peppers
1 zucchini
1 cup of oil (for frying)

3/4 cup of cornstarch
¼ cup of flour
1 tsp. of baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons of salt
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon of garlic powder
½ teaspoon Italian seasoning
½ cup of water
1 egg

Clean your asparagus, zucchini and peppers and dry them. Cut the zucchini into very thin slices (You can make them however thin or thick you like, but they will fry better when they are thin and taste even crispier.) Cut the top of your pepper off and clean the inside, making sure to remove all of the seeds and white skin. Slice. Cut your asparagus (my trick for making sure I get the good asparagus is to just snap them by hand, where they naturally snap, is what you will want to get rid of.)

Mix all of your dry ingredients, the cornstarch, flour, baking soda, salt, black pepper, garlic powder and Italian seasoning. Then add your water and egg and beat lightly.

Use a deep enough pan to fry. Set your stove on high heat and put the oil in the pan. You will want to wait for it to really heat up before beginning to fry. Once it is hot, dip your vegetables in the batter and carefully immerse in the oil. Allow each side to fry for at least two minutes. Take the vegetables and put on a wire rack to cool. Salt lightly and enjoy!! As always, I encourage you to leave comments and let me know what's on your mind!!