Thursday, April 19, 2007

April 17, 2007: Leftover makeover - Vege pancakes

This meal's featured leftovers are buttermilk and baby spinach salad. I whipped them up into some savoury buttermilk pancakes, with a hint of India in the salad spices, the chickpea flour and the ghee I fried them in. The buttermilk has them fluffy and buttery all the way through and there's just a hint of crispness on the outside when fresh out of the pan. Delicious! We made a meal of them by trying this capsicum and coconut dhal, put together by dhalmaster Michael. It wasn't one of our favourites, probably because we used lentils with their husks intact, thus preventing them from disintegrating into the broth.

Vege pancakes

2 cups grated vegetables
1 1/2 cups besan (chickpea flour)
1 teaspoon baking powder
a pinch of salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
2 eggs, lightly beaten
ghee, for frying

Combine the grated veges, besan, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Mix in the buttermilk and eggs, stopping when the batter is only just combined - it's best not to over-mix. Heat a frypan and throw in a teaspoon of ghee, then pour in a half-cup of batter. When bubbles appear on the surface it's time to flip the pancake - it'll only take half as long to cook this side. Repeat with the rest of the batter. If you're picky about keeping the pancakes warm, you can layer them on a plate and keep them in an oven on its coolest setting.

2 comments:

  1. YUU-uhh-UM! I tend to like savoury goods over sweets, and pancakes usually seem to lean on the sweet variety more often than not. This looks like a recipe worth trying out. Better still, i'd love to know if you can order this at some place for brunch and have someone else deal with the stress (that i, at least) associate with pancake making :P

    One question though, is it essential to use chickpea flour rather than the regular stuff? i'd imagine that chickpea flour produces a far more denser batter (and pancake)?

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  2. Hi SL! These might be what you're after. I'm sure you could make these successfully using regular wheat flour instead. I was also wondering if the besan would make them heavy but they were still quite light when fresh. Let me know if you do try them, and if you use different veges, flour, etc.

    I haven't discovered any savoury brunch pancakes out and about, but I'll almost certainly order them if I do. :-)

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