Have you ever had carrot fritters?  I haven’t. That is until my friend Iya introduced me to them.  Iya is the ultimate foodie. Loves cooking food, talking about food, sharing recipes about food, and hearing about food. Whenever we meet she will always ask me if I made anything interesting for dinner. In one of our conversations she was reminiscing about her childhood and how she remembered her Mom making carrot patties. Carrot patties?  I told her I’ve never heard of those before. Iya said her Mom would make them when she was a child but she hadn’t had them in years, in over two decades in fact. I was curious, and asked Iya for the recipe. But Iya didn’t recall how they were made, she only remembered that carrots were boiled and mashed and made into patties.

Iya and her Mom

This discussion got Iya thinking about carrot patties and she asked her Mom back in Russia for the recipe. Iya is from Russia. She was born and raised there and moved to America after marriage. Iya’s Mom told her she hasn’t made carrot fritters in years, in fact it’s been so long now that she didn’t remember the recipe either. Between Iya and her Mom they came up with a recipe for carrot fritters from memory that has carrots, cream of wheat (semolina), parsley, dill and onions. Iya encouraged me to make these patties, and if they turned out great, asked that I share the recipe. And there you go, that’s how I ended up making these delicious carrot fritters.

I had to experiment with the recipe a little. The binding agent was cream of wheat, and the flavoring agents were onions, parsley, dill, salt and pepper. I did add garlic to give the patties more pizzazz. I have to admit, I wasn’t sure how these patties would turn out, but they turned out great! Hitesh and the twins were my taste testers and loved these carrot patties 😋.  If you like a sweet and savory patty packed with flavor you will really enjoy these Russian carrot fritters. Here is the recipe.

Russian Carrot Patties:

Ingredients:

• 6 large carrots peeled and steamed until tender.
• 1 large onion chopped finely
• 1 large bunch of parsley finely chopped (about 1 cup) but I used cilantro as I love cilantro
• 1 tsp garlic powder or fresh crushed garlic
• 1/2 tsp dill
• 1 tsp paprika
• Salt
• 1/2 cup cream of wheat
• Oil

Directions:

In a pan heat 1 tbsp oil and sauté onions until crisp and browned. Set aside.

In a large bowl mash the carrots until mashed potato like consistency. Add cooked onions, salt, paprika, dill, garlic powder, and cilantro and mix in. Add cream of wheat and mix together.

Form patties and shallow fry until golden brown on both sides.

Serve carrot patties as is, or with a side of sour cream dip or Greek yogurt dip.

Cook’s notes:  You can adjust any of the spices in this recipe to your taste. Try it with parsley like the original recipe or with cilantro like I did. If you find the patties too soft, you can add more cream of wheat. I will post a recipe for a super quick yogurt dip you can make to accompany these carrots fritters.