Frittering my day away

I am between jobs at the moment. Not in the 'resting actor' kind of way, more in the 'I've finished working at one job and I'm waiting to start at another' kind of way.

I've spent my few days off doing all my chores - shopping, cleaning, all sorts of other dullardry that needed to be done. Now, it's my last work-free day. What should I do with it, I asked a friend. "Do something you enjoy," was her sage reply.

Can't fault the logic there. So that's what I did - I dug out some recipes that I'd set aside for later road testing and fired up the stove.

Sure, Yotam Ottolenghi's spicy okra fritters (made from this recipe) might not be your idea of a cracking breakfast, but that's only because you've not tried it yet.

Luckily for you, I've done a bit of breakfast pioneering and can report back that shallow frying a load of okra, shallots and spices and eating it with just a generous squeeze of lemon juice is just right for a lazy start to an equally lazy day off.

The recipe called for the fritters to be fried for a couple of minutes on each side than oven cooked for another four. I'm not entirely sure the oven cooking was entirely necessary, and it made the crisp fritters a little bit soggy.

Another tip: make sure you've got ample kitchen roll to hand, as these were greasy as all get-out. It's also the stuff breakfast in beds are made of.