February: Lenten apples

I decided to try frying the apple dish in oil, without the fish shell. In theory it should work, with enough ground almonds to hold everything together.

I started with frozen Regent apples, thawed them and ground them in my blender to the cosistency of chunky applesauce, about 2 cups.

To this I added 1/4 c. of sugar, 1 tsp of cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of ginger. 2 3/4 c ground blanched almonds, or enough to make a thickish dough. (I had to add some wheat flour to make the dough thick enough, about a cup.) I think that I would have had a different consistency if I had started with fresh apples and I probably should have drained the crushed apples thouroughly by placing them in a clean cloth and squeezing out the excess. I fried the dough in small balls in veggie oil, couple of minutes per side. I think you could also use animal fat.


The orginal recipe is not very specific as to the shape of the dough during frying, but there are countless recipes for dumplings and fritters so I thought a small ball would work well. It's about the size of a donut hole. Rolling the fried dough in sugar really adds to the flavor. Num!

I didn't do as good grinding the almonds so there are largeish bits on ocassion, which isn't horrible, but I think it should be a bit more consistantly ground. Manthra had a suggestion of using Almond Flour from Bob's Red Mill, which I think is a great solution.