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| Zucchini Pancakes c2010 |
One of my husband’s best friends is a real “white bread” kinda of guy. I always remember him eating a hot dog and a can of beans... oh yeah, and ice cream. My husband Trip, had a roommate in the ice cream business. Their freezer was always packed with unusual flavored ice creams. The business catered to many Asian restaurants: Green tea and aduki bean ice cream were often found in their stash. Needless to say, their refrigerator was primarily used to store beer.
When Trip and I moved out of the city and set up our apartment, I took over meal planing. I was primarily a vegetarian and had been one since my late teens. His friend, Mr.White Bread came to visit us one day and asked what I was making for dinner.
“Zucchini pancakes.”
“How do you make those?”
“You grate zucchini up and mix it with egg and flour.”
He confessed to me years later that he thought it sounded like the most disgusting dish ever. He may have even drank an extra beer or two to prepare himself for having to stomach this meal. Of course, he was shocked, like most people are who are not accustom to a meal in which meat isn’t the center of the dish, at how delicious they were.
Zucchini pancakes are light, but filling and you can top them with all kinds of interesting things. I usually put salsa on them. You can put leftover tomato sauce. Have some duck sauce leftover from Chinese food. It taste’s great on these. For a side dish, a hearty country loaf tastes terrific, or roasted potatoes, rice - pretty much any grain goes great with these cakes.
This is a really good recipe to store away for the end of August when your garden has been over run with zucchini. It is a great alternative to zucchini bread, which really doesn’t use up enough zucchini when you are looking at a dozen of them siting on your kitchen counter. So, be surprised, and enjoy!
Zucchini Pancakes
by Diane Balch
prep: 20 - 30 minutes (depending if you have a food processor)
serves: 4 (makes 2 pancakes per person)
6 cups of grated, dried green and/or yellow (a combination of both is good) zucchini (approximately 6 small zucchinis)
2-4 minced cloves of garlic
salt and pepper to taste
2 teaspoon Emerald dash or another Italian seasoning mix
2 beaten eggs
8 tablespoons of whole wheat flour or gluten-free flour I like King Arthur's multi-purpose flour
4 tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil
1) Grate the zucchini by hand or with a food processor.
2) Spread the grated zucchini out on top of two layers of paper towels. Cover the zucchini with another 2 layer sheet of paper towels and press. Remove top paper towels and repeat until most of the liquid from the zucchini is blotted up.
3) Beat the eggs in the bottom of a large mixing bowl.
4) Add zucchini, garlic and seasoning to the bowl and mix.
5) Slowly add in the flour and incorporate it into the zucchini egg mixture with a spatula, keep scraping the sides of the bowl and make sure the flour really gets absorbed into the mixture.
6) Divide mixture into 8 balls.
7) Heat 2 tablespoons of oil in a large non-stick skillet on medium-high heat. Make sure the oil is very hot (check that a drop of water sizzles in the pan) before you put in your balls of zucchini.
8) Put 4 balls into the skillet with enough room between them that they can flattened out with your spatula and not over lap.
9) Cook the flatted balls (which are now pancakes) for about 5 minutes on each side. They should be golden brown, even crunchie on the edges before you turn them over.
10) Add another 2 tablespoons of oil to the pan. Wait until it is hot and repeat instructions for cooking with the 4 remaining balls.
11) Serve immediately, topped with salsa or other condiments and bread or grain side dish.
copyright 2012
http://verygoodrecipes.com/italia
vegetarian, Italian
copyright 2012
http://verygoodrecipes.com/italia
vegetarian, Italian
