Santorini Tomato Fritters

I'm talking about Greece again. When I was in Santorini I ordered their speciality  of "tomato balls or fritters" every restaurant I went to that had them.  I would always have leftovers and eat them for breakfast.  I took a cooking class and we made them there too.  I can't find fresh spearmint here (dried, I can) so I asked my friend who visits farmer's markets often to keep her eye out for me.  She actually bought an herb plant of it and grew me some.  She brought some into work for me, so I decided it was time to make these.  Below are four pictures from Santorini.  The first picture of the dip is the one I wanted to try to recreate this evening to go with my fritters.  I'll get to that later.

I used the recipe I got from my cooking class which fritters are the ones directly above.  It was a winery with a restaurant actually.  The first two pictures were at restaurants I dined at.  Online, this one looked pretty good too.  I thought some feta cheese added might be a nice touch so I put some in (1/2 cup, crumbled).  I added 1/2 a small red onion too, finely diced. My recipe did not include these and is below:

• 500 grams cherry tomatoes, quartered
• 4 green onions, chopped
• 150 grams self-rising flour, sifted  (I saved myself some money)
• 1 tablespoon chopped parsley
• 2 tablespoons chopped spearmint
• 1 tablespoon chopped dill
• 1 teaspoon dry spearmint
• kosher salt (recipe just said salt)
• fresh cracked pepper
• pinch of cinnamon
• pinch of sweet paprika

The instructions were very simple.  They say:  "Combine all the ingredients in a mixing bowl and let it rise.  Then you fry in oil".

I remember our instructor used olive oil so that is what I did.  He used much more than I, maybe double?  I used a half inch in my cast iron pan and heated at med-high for 15 minutes keeping an eye on it to make sure it didn't smoke.

I started by sifting the flour, baking powder and salt into a bowl.  Then I chopped and measured all the rest of the herbs and spices and put them in the flour.  The fresh spearmint smelled wonderful when I chopped it.  One stalk of leaves gave me a good heaping tablespoon and I used two.

I added the onions.

Lastly I added the tomatoes and feta.  I mixed this into a batter?  I hoped it was a batter!

I let it sit while the oil heated.  The day of the cooking class, this was the one part that I seemed to have missed - the cooking and looking at the batter for these.  I remember all the other dishes well...

I ladled the batter in by heaping tablespoons and crossed my fingers and held my breath.  And then, much to my surprise, they looked like tomato fritters!!!  I gave them a flip after 3 minutes or so.

Then after another 3 minutes, I let them drain on paper towels and gave another shake of S&P on them.

For the dip, I was amazed when the Greek restaurant gave it to me.  I asked them what was in it and my server told me it was just yogurt and mustard.  I was stunned at how simple it was and how good their yogurt was!  Anyway, I only really found one recipe for it, so based it on this.  I bought Liberte 10% Milk fat, plain Greek yogurt.  I used a cup, added 1 minced clove of garlic, freshly cracked pepper, kosher salt and a heaping tablespoon of Dijon mustard.  I let it sit in the fridge while I went about cooking.  When I put it in ramekins, I garnished with sweet paprika and chopped dill.

WOW!!! This took me back to Santorini and tasted just like I remembered - AMAZING!!!  I call this a huge success!  The dip was good, but wasn't as good as I remember...must be the yogurt.  ;)   I don't think the Feta was needed and I wouldn't bother next time.   I was pretty pleased with this.  I think I should add this to my list for impressing dinner guests.  YUM!!!!!!!  P.S.  I have some leftover for breakfast.  :)