Right – here’s your Friday night post pub munchies sorted and no mistake! These ‘critter fritters’ as I call ’em are bananas and are brilliant sitting around with a few beers and huge bowl of garlic and lime mayo!

‘Lump’ crab isn’t a type of crab with a big ‘ol bump on it’s head…nope, lump just designates the size of the meat extracted from the little critter. Designations grades range from ‘Colossal’ all the way down to ‘special’ or flakes – lump is usually the meat taken from the claws in one piece and is then broken up slightly.

You can get this crab from your Fish Monger or in tins, slightly pricey but worth it.

Friday night Critter Fritters

Makes 8 fist sized fritters –
500grams lump crab meat, (drained if out of a tin)

For the ‘fratter’ (fritter batter)
200grams plain flour
1 bottle of good beer(no lager, Dutch Gold doesn’t make a good fratter)
Salt
Touch or Turmeric
Lemon juice at hand

This is a super quick dish and should be eaten straight out of the oil. Kick off by making the fratter – combine all of the ingredients above and whisk to the consistency of double cream. If it’s too thick then it will kill off the crab flavour. Let the fratter stand for about 5 minutes to allow the beer to off load it’s C02 into the mix, then sling in all the crab.

Ready to roll – open a lot of beer – and fire up the oil. When the oil is ready (bread floats and bubbles in it) then spoon some of the crab mix in….really, really carefully. When you lift the crab/fratter mix out of the bowl let it drain a little to get rid of any excess fratter and always dunk the fritter away from you in one clean swipe.

Deep fry for roughly 2-3 minutes or until nicely browned all over. To be sooper dooper sure the fratter is done then reef one out cut it open and the inside should be somewhat dry and fluffy and the outside crispy.

Easy peasey lemon squeasy – thanks lumpy!