Sliced zucchini, dipped in a tempura batter and fried until crispy. Sounds like heaven to me.

My sister introduced me to zucchini fries and I resisted making them for so long because 1. it’s zucchini and 2. If fries aren’t crispy then I’m not interested. I thought that these would be a soggy awful mess. Boy was I wrong!

The tempura batter crisps up deliciously and gives the fries the crunch you need. You can even pick these fries up and dip them into your favourite sauce. Make them as thick or thin as you like, I like to make zucchini wedges, but for those that don’t like zucchini quite as much as I do you could make thinner batons of zucchini.

If you have a glut of zucchini like I do, please see my other zucchini recipes, spaghetti with bacon and zucchini, bacon and zucchini slice, and potato and zucchini pizza.

Prep: 10 mins

cook: 10 mins

Serves: 4-6

Ingredients

• 1 large or 2 medium zucchini, cut into batons
• 1/3 cup plain flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• approx 3/4 cup cold soda water 
• Enough oil to fry fries
• salt/pepper to season

Method

1. Heat the oil to approx 180C.
2. Make the batter by combining the flour, salt and water. Mix until you have a thin, smooth batter.
3. Dip the zucchini into the batter, shake off any excess and carefully place into the hot oil. Cook for approx 4 minutes (turning after two minutes unless your deep frying)
4. Repeat with the remaining zucchini batons.
5. Drain on paper towel, season with salt and pepper.
6. Serve