Spam Fritters

Spam Fritters are one of my newly-discovered favourite foods of the moment - and i just can't get enough of them!! I have always been a fan of Spam since I was very little and up until recently mum used to make her own version of 'fritters'. Mum's are lovely, don't get me wrong, but the 'proper' ones you can buy by the packet, ready-made are just that much nicer - though I haven't told mum!!

I found these myself about a fortnight ago. ...
...had closer look at the Spam Fritters.

As soon as I opened the cellophane wrapper I could smell the lovely chopped ham and pork - the familiar smell of Spam!! Mmmmm….. The fritters themselves are about six inches by about 2 inches in size and are coated in a lovely batter. The ingredient list said that each fritter has 221 calories and has a fairly massive amount of salt in each one - 2g of salt, which is the equivalent of 33% of an ... more

Spam Fritters are one of my newly-discovered favourite foods of the moment - and i just can't get enough of them!! I have always been a fan of Spam since I was very little and up until recently mum used to make her own version of 'fritters'. Mum's are lovely, don't get me wrong, but the 'proper' ones you can buy by the packet, ready-made are just that much nicer - though I haven't told mum!!

I found these myself about a fortnight ago. Nan is in hospital recovering from a very bad stroke, mum and dad were visiting and were allowed to stay late, so I was asked to buy something on my way home for tea that would be quick and easy to make as we would all be in quite late and mum didn't want to have to stand for ages in the kitchen cooking. I didn't have enough bus fare to get into town to Tesco so I just popped into our local corner shop. The bloke in there chats to me for ages, he's really nice, and we stood for ages watching the Asian channel on his little TV he has in the corner of his shop. He was telling me about the break-in he had the week before and how some lads had got away with nicking most of the fags he had in stock as well as loads of tins of lighter fuel. I felt a bit sorry for him so I ended up buying some 'Spam Fritter' he had in the front of the shop in his chiller cabinet, as he said they were a 'slow mover' - I guess that means he couldn't get shot of them!!

They were £1.99 for a pack of 4 fritters. I knew this wouldn't be enough to go around for me mum dad and brother, but I was short of 48p but Sinbad (I don't think this is actually his real name) said I could pay him later, so I bought two packs (eight fritters) and off I went. I knew mum, dad and brother would be back about 9.00pm, so I set about starting to get the tea on at about 8 o'clock. It takes me ages to peel spuds and mum won't let me make the Smash I love to eat when it comes to cooking for the whole family, so I was forced to peel a lot of potatoes! My fingers were sore and I peeled a great pan of them and put them on to boil. I opened a tin of mushy peas (as we had no frozen ones left) and had closer look at the Spam Fritters.

As soon as I opened the cellophane wrapper I could smell the lovely chopped ham and pork - the familiar smell of Spam!! Mmmmm….. The fritters themselves are about six inches by about 2 inches in size and are coated in a lovely batter. The ingredient list said that each fritter has 221 calories and has a fairly massive amount of salt in each one - 2g of salt, which is the equivalent of 33% of an average person's recommended daily amount of salt!! I didn't tell dad as I knew he'd be reluctant to eat them as he says he has to watch how much salt he eats as he has high blood pressure. I think if we eat these too regularly though, I'll have to tell him as I'll feel guilty if anything happens to him if I feed him too much of the stuff!!

The instructions say the fritters have to be deep or shallow fried but not grilled. I suppose this is because they would probably dry out a bit. We don't have a deep fat fryer so I just poured some oil in the bottom of our frying pan, waited for it to heat up and then slapped in my fritters. It splattered and spluttered and I was covered in fat, and so were the side walls and the back of the oven. I think I might have turned it up too high, so I turned down the heat a bit but it didn't make much difference. Mum and dad came back just as the potatoes had boiled dad set about mashing them while mum ran off to put kitchen paper down on the plates to 'absorb the fat' she said. I said I didn't want my fat to be absorbed as I love greasy stuff, so mine just went straight onto my pate with my mash and mushy peas.

Well, what can I say? We all ate in complete silence, I think we were very hungry, but everyone is always very quiet in our house when they've come back from visiting my nan in hospital. Mum says she feels guilty for eating when nan is stuck in there on her own and sometime she cries and can't finish her food. Dad puts his arm around her and tells her it'll be all right but mostly she leaves the food on her plate. She ate nearly all of it on this night though, which is a pretty major achievement for her and she only left a half of her share of fritter so I finished that off for her!!

The fritters were especially lovely as they had a really crispy batter on them and were lovely and tender and meaty inside. Although they are supposed to have a lot of salt in them, I have to say they didn't taste particularly salty to me, although I do like a lot of salt on my food. I even put on extra on mine!! Afterwards, mum went for her bath and some 'quiet time' and me and dad and brother washed the dishes for her.

We have bought these fritters again since but mum has bought them from Tesco. They are the same price in there, but you get them cheaper as they have an offer on at the moment of buy one get one half price. I say if you are looking for something nice and tasty and quick to make for your tea one night, then you should definitely give these Spam Fritters a try - I bet you'll love them as much as I do.

I went back to see Sinbad on Monday and gave him the 48p I owed him and he was chuffed that he's managed to get rid of his stock of slow moving fritters, so maybe the word is getting round …… xxxxxxxxxxxxx 

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