First Food Recipe….Conch Fritters

Conch Fritters Recipe – Nevis Style

Conch fritters are one of those snack foods that I can eat at any time of the day, hot or room temperature, and I do.  I first tasted these when a friend of mine from Nevis, June France of Newcastle, made them for my family back in the early nineties.  I have been a great fan of June’s cooking ever since!  Many of the Caribbean recipes you will see on these pages are hers or reasonable facsimile thereof. This is a conch fritter recipe that June gave me.

Conch Fritters Recipe Ingredients:

1 lb conch meat (You can get away with this recipe by using diced clams.)
1/2 lg onion
2 stalks celery
1/2 red pepper
1/2 green pepper
Salt to taste
1 egg
1/3 cup self rising cornmeal
1/3 cup flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 cup buttermilk
1/4 tsp Nevis pepper sauce

Put conch through food grinder or food processor.  Process with onion, celery, red and green pepper and mix with conch, adding salt and egg.  Mix well.  Mix together cornmeal, flour and baking powder.  Add conch mixture.  Mixture should be thick.  Add buttermilk and hot sauce.  Drop by heaping tablespoon into deep oil until light brown. Drain.  Serve with a remoulade sauce and lemon wedges.

How to Choose and Prepare Conch for Conch Fritters

Choose your conch.

• Conches should be white with pink and orange.
• Do not buy conches that appear gray.
• Conches should not give off a fishy smell.

Prepare conch for cooking.

• If you have collected the conches yourself, you will need to remove the meat from the shell. If the conch is difficult to remove, drill a small hole in the top of the shell to break the suction and then it should be fairly easy to pull the conch out of the main opening of the shell.
• Wash the conch in several changes of water.
• Use only the muscle of the conches for your conch fritters. The digestive gland must be removed for the meat to be safe.
• Before you can cook conches, you must remove the operculum. The operculum is a shell-like covering that protects the conch and assists in locomotion. Cut it off with a knife.
• If you are not using precooked conch meat, soak the conches in salty water for several hours.
• Cut off any dark pieces of skin on the conchs.
• Tenderize the conches by pounding it with a mallet until it is smooth and the thickness you want. This may not be necessary if you choose a longer cooking method for your conches.