I was recently invited to attend the launch of the Yeo Valley cookbook “The Great British Farmhouse Cookbook“. It was a fabulous event and I won’t even begin to mention the amazing food, fabulous venue and scintillating company because I will just make you jealous (oops).

The book is written by Sarah Mayor who is the daughter of Roger and Mary Mead who started Yeo Valley at Holt Farm in the 60’s. Having perused the book and tried a few recipes I can recommend you all go out and buy it. It’s really good value for money as it contains way more recipes than the average cookbook. The recipes are good old fashioned rustic cooking and have a real country kitchen feel.

Last weekend we made carrot and coriander fritters from the book for a lunch we shared with guests. Everyone enjoyed them and here is the recipe.

Carrot & Coriander Fritters With Green Yoghurt Sauce:

Serves 4

Ingredients 

• 25g butter
• 1 bunch spring onions, trimmed, cleaned and thinly sliced
• 2 large free range eggs
• 80 ml whole milk
• 90g plain flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1/4 tsp turmeric powder
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 350g coarsely grated carrots
• 25g parmesan finely grated
• 15g coriander leaves, chopped
• sunflower oil for shallow frying
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

For The Yoghurt Sauce:

• 100g wholemilk natural yoghurt
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1/4 tsp caster sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 15g mint leaves
• 15g coriander leaves
• 1 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Method:

1. For the green yoghurt sauce, put all the ingredients into a food processor and blitz until smooth. Spoon into a bowl and chill for 1 hour.

2. Preheat the oven to 110c and line a baking tray with plenty of kitchen paper.

3. Melt the butter in a small pan, add the spring onions and cook for 1 minute until softened. Set aside. Beat the eggs and milk together in a bowl then sift over the flour, baking powder, cumin, turmeric, cayenne pepper and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Whisk together.

4. Pile the grated carrot in the centre of a clean tea towel and squeeze out the excess liquid. Stir into the batter with the spring onions, parmesan and coriander.

5. Pour 1cm oil into a large, deep frying pan and heat it to 180c. Drop 4 large or 8 smaller spoonfuls of the batter into the oil and flatten the mixture slightly with the back of a spoon. Fry until crisp and golden brown – 1 1/2 minutes on each side for large fritters or 1 minute for smaller ones. Lift onto the paper-lined tray and keep warm in the oven while you cook the rest. Serve warm with the green yoghurt sauce.

*Disclosure: I received a copy of the book.