Ever since our last trip to Portland I’ve been dreaming about the corn fritters we ate at the Whiskey Soda Lounge. I was determined that when corn came into season up here I would try making them myself. Of course, now I don’t quite remember what was in them, but nothing ventured nothing gained. I bought a few ears of fabulously sweet corn from Steve at Dunbar Gardens last week and we grilled them with a little ancho chile salt one night for dinner. We also put a couple of poblano peppers on the grill, and the next night I skinned them and tossed them in a food processor with the leftover grilled corn kernels. I saved out some of the corn and added it in after processing, for texture. Then I mixed in about a third of a cup of flour, one egg, and a handful of chopped fresh cilantro. I plopped spoonfuls of this into a hot skillet and cooked them until golden.

The result was absolutely nothing like the fritters at WSL (which I’m quite sure were deep-fried and possibly full of dried shrimp and minced Thai chile), but it was very tasty nonetheless, much like a Southwest-y version of the “corn oysters” my parents used to make when I was a kid. We ate the fritters as a side dish with a Thai beef-eggplant stirfry, then I refried the leftovers for breakfast with fried eggs and habanero sauce. Now that was good.

Corn’s still in season, what variation shall I try next?