Crab and sea vegetable fritters

Serves 4

Crab and sea vegetable fritters (Jason Lowe)

Delicate, slightly salty seashore vegetables like sea spinach, sea purslane, sea aster and samphire make great little fritters. Combined with crab they work as a lovely dinner-party starter or a snack at a drinks party.

Vegetable or corn oil for deep frying
70-80g seashore vegetables, trimmed and blanched for 30 seconds or so
150g freshly-picked white crab meat
70g self-raising flour
Enough water to make a light batter
Salt and freshly ground black pepper
2tbsp good-quality mayonnaise
2tbsp cooked brown crab meat

Stir the mayonnaise and brown crab meat together and season. Next, mix the white crab and sea vegetables – if you are using sea spinach you may need to cut it down a bit together in a bowl, ensuring you don't break down the crab too much, then stir in the flour and enough water to make a thickish batter; season.

Preheat about 8cm of oil to 160-180C in a large, thick-bottomed saucepan or electric deep-fat fryer.

Drop dessertspoonfuls of the crab and sea-vegetable mixture into the hot fat and stir occasionally with a slotted spoon for a couple of minutes, until nicely coloured and crisp; drain on kitchen paper.

Scatter with some salt and serve either with the crab mayonnaise, or with the mayonnaise on the side of the plate.