Santorini Tomato Fritters

During tomato season try making these divine Santorini tomato fritters or Tomatokeftedes. These are full of flavour using fresh tomatoes, spring onions and herbs. A little bonus is that these are also vegan and egg free so making these simple but flavour packed tomato fritters. If you love tomatoes and want to try a delicious recipe from the Greek Islands then give these tomato fritters a try!

I tried Domatokeftedes/Tomatokeftedes or tomato fritters for the first time in my life on our recent holiday in Greece. They're a specialty of Santorini as tomatoes grown in the lush volcanic soil are superb there and are popular as an appetiser throughout the Cyclades. These juicy bites are bursting with sweet tomatoes and herbs and are so delicious that I put them on my list to make at home. I got lots of messages from people that saw them on my Instagram stories that I decided that I had to go them a go as soon as I arrived back. And these were even better than I remembered!

Once I had the recipe sorted out, I wanted to experiment with how they were cooked. Traditionally Tomatokeftedes are deep fried but I don't love deep frying so I tested this batter out with deep fried, shallow fried and oven baked. I actually preferred the shallow fried ones the best and there was little to no spitting when I shallow fried them. But if you want the flavour of what you ate in Santorini, then deep fry these fritters.

Tips For Making Tomato Fritters

1 - I used a mix of cherry tomatoes and vine ripened tomatoes. You can use any tomatoes for these but "drier" varieties work best but don't worry you will press out most of the liquid anyway. Make sure to chop them up into small pieces to make it easier to fry them.

2 - Be sure to be generous with the herbs, spring onions, onion and salt and pepper. They add so much flavour to these Domatokeftedes

3 - I use bubbly cold soda water to lighten the batter.

4 - You can shallow fry, oven bake or deep fry these tomato fritters. To oven bake, scoop into a fritter shape, spray with olive oil and bake at 180C/350F for 15 minutes. They won't look as pretty as when they are fried but they will still be tasty. To deep fry, heat oil to 160C/320F and fry 60g/2oz balls of dough for 6 minutes. Drain on a paper towel.

5 - The restaurant that we ate these at had more batter than tomatoes and if you prefer it that way double the flour, baking powder and soda water mixture. To me, I love the juiciness of the tomatoes in this version and this really brings that out.

Other Tomato Recipes You Might Like:

• Burrata Salad With Tomatoes

• Summer Tomato Salad

• Peach Tomato Caprese Salad
• Frozen Tomato Burrata Salad

I wanted to go to Santorini for the longest time and I pitched the idea to Mr NQN who was a bit less enthused because he wasn't sure if we could fit into our European holiday. We had a week in Sicily, then a few days and then a week on a cruise and then a few days between flying to Vietnam. It was a very early morning when I was supposed to fly out (Mr NQN was working so he was leaving a few days later) and I was busy searching for hotels when I came across an offer that I wasn't sure was real. It was a Santorini cave hotel in Oia for $250 a night!

"Honey have a look at this," I said showing Mr NQN. "Is that real?" he said squinting at the offer. The reviews were stellar, all 5 star across a range of sites and we figured we would take a chance on it and booked it. Santorini was a real surprise. It is beautiful, other worldly so, and seeing the buildings and architecture in real life was like a dream come true. Because we were travelling during shoulder season the weather was chillier and windier but we were surprised to see that there were so many people. We could not imagine it during summer.

Mr NQN hates crowds and on every viewpoint were huge numbers of people all trying to get that perfect sunset shot. Sometimes they were two or three people deep along the barriers. I could see Mr NQN was overwhelmed by it all so we took some quick snaps and I steered him towards a restaurant for dinner so we still got a view of the sun setting but didn't have to be in the thick of it. And that is where we ate these wonderful tomato fritters. I can't wait to share our Santorini trip with you but in the meantime, I hope you'll give these tomato fritters a try!

So tell me Dear Reader, have you ever been to Santorini and what was your experience of it? What has been the most crowded place you have visited?

Tomato Fritters Santorini Greek

An Original Recipe by Lorraine Elliott

Preparation time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 6 minutes per batch

Makes: 18 fritters

• 400g/14ozs tomatoes, cherry or large tomatoes
• 1 medium onion, finely chopped (around 150g/5ozs)
• 3 spring onions (green and white), chopped
• 1/4 cup basil leaves, shredded
• 1/4 cup mint leaves, shredded
• 1/8 cup parsley leaves, shredded
• 200g/7ozs plain all purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/4 teaspoon fine salt
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/2-2/3 cup/125-150ml/4-5flozs chilled soda water
• Oil for shallow frying

Step 1 - Chop the tomatoes into small pieces or quarter the cherry tomatoes. Place the tomato pieces in a sieve over a jug and press down with a spoon or your hands to release the juices and seeds. Mix the tomatoes in a bowl with the chopped onion, spring onion, basil, mint and parsley.

Step 2 -In a bowl whisk the flour, baking powder, salt and pepper together and then add into the tomato herb mixture mixing well. Add the soda water and mix to become a batter. It will look like there's not enough batter but it will stick together.

Step 3 -Heat a frying pan onto medium heat. When it is hot add oil and wait for it to shimmer and heat up. Carefully scoop 60g/2oz balls of the mixture flattening it out to form a fritter. Cook for 3 minutes on each side adding oil if it needs it. Place on a plate lined with paper towels.