Who doesn’t have extra zucchini this time of year? Today’s tapas is gluten free zucchini fritters with fried egg. It’s a take on a traditional Spanish tapa called zarangollo (sah-rahn-GO-yo). Zarangollo is made with zucchini and onions. Sometimes eggs are scrambled with the vegetables, other times fried eggs are served or eggs may be omitted altogether. Zarangollo comes from Murcia, an autonomous region in Southeastern Spain known for its agricultural products, which are shipped all over Europe.
My version of the zucchini fritter is gluten free thanks to the use of chickpea flour (also known as besan flour) as the binding agent. Ordinarily, a quarter cup of chickpea flour plus a quarter cup of water will replace an egg in most recipes. In this case, the zucchini will provide plenty of water. I don’t want you to skip this recipe if you don’t have chickpea flour available so I’ll make note of where “conventional” ingredients would be used.
A note about the zucchini…if you have one of those huge, club like zucchini cut it in half the long way and scoop all the seeds out with a spoon before grating.
Ingredients
- 2 cups grated zucchini
- 1/2 medium onion minced as small as you can
- 1/2 cup chickpea flour OR 2 eggs beaten
- 3 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese try Manchego, a Spanish cheese, if you can find it
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley
- salt and pepper to taste
- 1/2 teaspoon smoky paprika
- 1/2 cup bread crumbs optional if using chickpea flour
- olive oil for frying
- a fried egg per person
Instructions
- After grating the zucchini, squeeze as much water as you can out of it. You can do this by placing it in a clean dish towel and squeezing it, or by placing in a fine mesh strainers and pressing the water out.
- Place the squeezed zucchini in a medium sized mixing bowl.
- Add the onion, chickpea flour (or beaten eggs and bread crumbs), chopped parsley, salt, pepper and paprika.
- Add enough oil to barely cover the bottom of a medium skillet and heat over medium high heat. (These fritters will absorb oil like crazy, so use the least amount that will get the job done).
- The mix will be quite wet. It's easier to form into patties and immediately add to the skillet. You could also ladle the mix in, pancake style.
- Two cups shredded zucchini yielded six fritters, work in batches if necessary in order to not crowd the skillet.
- Don't be in a hurry to flip the fritters. They're ready to flip when the bottoms are nicely browned.
- The fritters may be quite "loose" even with the browned bottoms. I use a two spatula method to flip them.
- When the fritters are browned on both sides, remove them a plate lined with paper towels and salt them.
- Let the fritters set while you fry an egg for each person.
- Serve each fritter with a fried egg on top.
Gluten free zucchini fritters are perfect way to use up that surplus zucchini. To me, the fried egg makes the dish. When you cut into them, the egg yolk mixes with the fritter…YUM!
Updated August 2016
Here’s one of the original photos for archival purposes 🙂
Your fritters sound amazing. I love the tip about the chickpea flour and water. Making a mental note of that one. Stopping in from Real Food Friday. Have a wonderful weekend.
Blessings,
Shari
Thanks! I don’t think you can have too many zucchini recipes 🙂
yum, that looks really good. I’ve not had this combination before, but I love zucchini fritters ;o)
YUMMY – I must try. Can one use traditional flour?
I used the besan flour as an egg sustitute, so use an egg as the binder and regular flour to coat. If the mix seems too loose you could try adding a little flour or bread crumbs to tighten it up. Good luck!
Pinned this to my breakfast board Lydia. Although you could really eat this anytime of day. Looks great!
Thanks for the pin! I hope you enjoy them 🙂
Oh my this looks and sounds so good pinning to my healthy eating board.
We like them! Hope you do too 🙂
Boo hoo. I actually DON’T have a lot of zucchini this year. For some reason I am only getting a few.
Strange how that happens sometimes, isn’t it? I hope you can find some locally 🙂
This just looks delicious! I haven’t tried chickpea flour yet, I use almond and coconut flours quite often, though. I just love zucchini and will need to try this!
I’ve used almond flour, but not coconut flour. I buy the chickpea flour at the local Indian grocery store. I’m always amazed to the variety of spices, lentils and beans they sell. How did you make out today?