Melon fruit fritters with honey and sherry sauce

Over the past couple of months we have had many family gatherings and as always, as lot of food and drink is consumed.  On one occasion, jokingly, my son and his flatmate were teasing me good naturedly about my unusual cooking ideas and said facetiously: ‘We expect you could cook even melon!’ That set me thinking – would boring old melon be cookable?  We decided that perhaps it would – so after several trial runs, this is what I came up with. I dare you to try it!

Ingredients

1 Charentais or Ogden melon
1 dsp orange juice
1 tsp caster sugar
1 tsp sherry (medium sweet, if poss)
3 oz honey with 1 tbsp sherry (for sauce)

Fritter Batter

85g /3 oz flour
small pinch of salt
1 ½ tsp caster sugar
1 egg, separated
4 tbsp warm beer
30/1 oz melted butter
About 2 inches of sunflower or walnut oil for frying the fritters in a deep frying pan

Method

Prepare the melon, first by cutting in half, removing seeds, then with a melon ball cutter cut out rounds from the fruit, or if the melon-baller is not available, cut with a knife into roughly even sized dice.  Place the fruit in a bowl. Sprinkle with the 1 tsp of caster sugar and the tsp of sherry and the orange juice. Leave to soak for about an hour.

To prepare the fritter batter, sieve the flour into a clean bowl and stir in the 1 ½ tsp caster sugar and pinch of salt.  Add the egg yolk in the centre and stir in with the warmed beer.  Then mix in the melted butter and stir until well blended. It should be the consistency of softly whisked cream: add a little water if it seems too stiff but it needs to be fairly thick to coat the fruit properly. Cover the batter and leave for about ¾ hour at room temperature.  (This lets the starch grains in the flour mature and swell).

Just before using the batter, whip the egg white until it stands in stiff peaks. Fold it into the batter in a figure-of-eight motion.

Drain the melon pieces with a slotted spoon or sieve, reserve the juice. Dry the fruit on kitchen paper and dip into the batter mixture and fry in hot oil, turning the fritters over frequently until evenly crisp and golden.  Transfer the fruit as it is cooked to some fresh kitchen paper to drain. Warm the honey and sherry sauce mixture, adding the juice that the melon was soaked in. Serve in a sauce boat to pour on the fritters which should be served as soon as possible.