Cooking with ChatGPT: Carrot and Leek Fritters with Caramel Sauce

Here’s the prompt:

I have some leftover caramel syrup, carrots, leeks, days old oatmeal cookies. I want a healthy snack made from ingredients I have on hand. Other ingredients at my disposal are bulgar wheat, rice, almond flour, stevia, instant coffee, cinnamon, clove, cardamon, salt, canola oil, eggs, fresh mint, fresh hawthorn fruit, lentils, bay leaves, raw cashews. I have a convection oven and a stand mixer, but I do not have a food processor. Can you please suggest an easy recipe for a dessert?

Here’s what ChatGPT generated:

Based on the ingredients you have on hand, here's a recipe for Carrot and Leek Fritters with a Caramel Glaze: 
Ingredients: 
 • 1 cup shredded carrots 
 • 1 cup thinly sliced leeks 
 • 1/2 cup bulgar wheat 
 • 2 eggs 
 • 1/4 cup almond flour 
 • 1/2 teaspoon salt 
 • 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon 
 • 1/4 teaspoon clove 
 • 1/4 teaspoon cardamon 
 • 1/4 cup canola oil 
 • Fresh mint leaves for garnish 
 • Leftover caramel syrup for glaze 
Directions: 
 1 Preheat your convection oven to 375°F. 
 2 In a large bowl, mix together the shredded carrots, sliced leeks, bulgar wheat, eggs, almond flour, salt, cinnamon, clove, and cardamon. 
 3 Form the mixture into small fritters and place them on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. 
 4 Brush the fritters with canola oil and bake them in the preheated oven for 15-20 minutes, or until they are golden brown and crispy. 
 5 While the fritters are baking, prepare the caramel glaze by warming up the leftover caramel syrup in a small saucepan on medium heat until it's runny and easy to pour. 
 6 Once the fritters are done, remove them from the oven and drizzle the warm caramel glaze over the top. 
 7 Garnish the fritters with fresh mint leaves and serve them warm. 
This recipe makes a healthy and delicious snack that's perfect for satisfying your sweet tooth without any guilt. Enjoy!

I fully expect this recipe to bomb for the following reason. 1/2 tsp of salt? I said I wanted dessert. Nothing, except for the leftover caramel syrup, adds sweetness. This is not a dessert, so maybe I need to judge this as a savory dish…

Okay, when I change my mindset from sweet to savory, there’s hope for this recipe. Here goes nothing. ChatGPT nailed the format as usual. It also made it relatively easy.

There’s an implication in this recipe for the bulgar wheat. The bulgar wheat I have is dry and if I followed the directions with dried bulgar wheat, it will likely taste like fritters with gritty pebbles inside. So, I will assume that the bulgar wheat (which are cracked, parboiled kernels of wheat) has been cooked and ready to eat and not the dried stuff in my pantry. Other than that detail, the recipe seems reasonable.

Now, note that I included other ingredients I had on hand but ChatGPT did not use them, which leads me to many questions.

• Why did it pick bulgar wheat and not use the rice I had on hand or even the lentils? I wonder if it would’ve made a difference if I specified that I had jasmine rice or yellow lentils?
• Why didn’t it ask me to use cashew and opted for the almond flour? Would it have made a difference if the cashew wasn’t whole, raw nuts?
• The most glaring error in judgment is not including stevia. I specifically said dessert and I even included a sweetener at my disposable. Perhaps it weighted my earlier request for a healthy snack as higher priority?
• The other assumption that matters is the form of the spice. What if I had whole cinnamon sticks? Whole cloves (which I did)? Whole cardamon pods? That would’ve been a rude awakening. For this recipe, I made sure that all my spices were ground.
• Which part of the leek do I use? I decided on the white portion where it’s more delicate and less fibrous.
• How many servings will this yield? I’m surprised I need 1/4 cup of canola oil. Wait? I never specified I had canola oil? Where did this come from? Luckily, I do have canola oil available. I highly doubt I’ll need 1/4 cup. For that much oil, I can pan-fry these babies.

Regardless of these unspecified details, let’s go ahead and test drive this recipe. After mixing the ingredients, the smell is surprisingly pleasant. Good sign! I’m worried that 2 eggs would be too much moisture, so the contingency is to start with one egg and if the consistency is good, I don’t add the second one. Or, if I do add the second egg, I’ll compensate by adding more almond flour. Honestly, I think there’s sufficient moisture from the carrots and leeks (in my case, my leeks were parcooked via freezer — I freeze fresh produce whenever I go on vacation so I don’t come home to a rotting pile in my veggie bin).

My intuition was correct afterall. Two eggs made the batter way too wet, so I ended up adding about 1 cup of almond flour to make up for it. This caused the end product to be a bit bland. I think the salt prescribed in the recipe was actually perfect. I’ve been impressed with the precision of its seasoning. So far, every recipe has been better seasoned than I would’ve done by eye (I tend to over salt my food).

When it came to mixing, I like robots, so everything went into my stand mixer with a paddle attachment. I whipped it up a little extra to beat in some air into the batter. As I formed the fritters on the baking pan, it just looked like a dish that needed to be deep fried, so I started up a small pot of hot oil to make two versions. And it turns out, deep fried is always better.

I did not expect the flavors to be so well balanced. The leeks didn’t overpower the dish. The mint garnish was refreshing. And who knew you could cook with gastric reflux goo! Oh, I forgot to tell you and ChatGPT that the leftover caramel sauce was a tasty squeeze bottle of gastric reflux alginate that wasn’t very effective at its job. It was quite delicious though, so don’t judge.

Verdict:

Overall, it’s a reasonable recipe. It certainly gave me a new flavor experience and used up ingredients I had on hand, so it served its purpose. Would I make it again? Maybe. I think if the same conditions resurfaced, where I didn’t know what to do with leeks, carrots, mint and caramel sauce, sure, why not. I’d say it’s a win for ChatGPT; it says something that the recipe would be worth the effort to make again.

Now, this recipe was gluten free by accident. I think it would’ve been improved if it had some AP (all-purpose) flour. And finally, there’s no question the recipe should be revised to fry the fritters! Bon appetit!

If you enjoyed this post, let me know below! I’ll be happy to make more like this. And if you’re brave enough to make this recipe yourself, would love to hear your thoughts on it!