Wednesday, 23 January 2008

It shouldn't come from a bean #4

Tonight's offering features the much-maligned courgette (maligned in our house, anyway). It was starring in a ratatouille-pancake combo, which is a little favourite of mine. The Scientist like pancakes - in fact 'like' is not nearly strong enough - but he likes them sweet. A savoury pancake is an aberration in Science world. In my world, however, it's like a little edible blanket encasing a thick, tomatoey, dollopy mix of some of my favourite vegetables.

Ratatouille is such a ubiquitous dish it hardly needs a recipe. I made mine by dumping some chopped garlic, courgette, pepper, tinned tomato and stock powder in a pan and heating for 10 mins. Then I added chopped aubergine and simmered for another 15 mins or so. Right at the end I added some cornflour mixed with water, which thickens it up nicely, and seasoned it. I would have added some leftover mushrooms, but I had eaten them on a baked sweet potato with avocado at lunchtime. Mmmmmmn. Meanwhile I had made some pancake batter with added wheatgerm for healthiness, and cooked them up right at the end. I have a new pan which is designated veggie only, and this is the first time I've used it for pancakes. I got better at estimating the temperature, and only one pancake ended up looking like a doily. Here are the pancakes, served with grated cheese and some yogurt. I love the way that there's a piece of courgette peeking out of the edge of the nearer pancake - checking what it's like outside its blanket?



Eco Sis: I cannot believe you have maligned the magnificent Jerusalem artichoke in the comments to my last post. Have you tried them roasted? Or in soup? I only ever seem to buy them about once a year, so perhaps that's why I think they're so great!

3 comments:

Ilana said...

actually, come to think of it, the time i tried roasting jerusalem artichokes was one of the times i left the oven on for 3 hours so they weren't very edible when i'd finished with them.. and i do agree, they are very nice in soup :)

Unknown said...

That looks *really* nice, but how odd that you call it a pancake! That would be a crepe in this part of the world. Pancakes are thick and doughy and a really wonderful breakfast food. I missed them terribly when I lived in England, but, ironically, haven't yet had one since returning a year ago!

Lysy said...

How funny - I love it that there are so many words for similar things! I think that the critical difference between our pancakes and crepes is that crepes use buckwheat. In our house 'breakfast pancake' is defined by who is making it - The Scientist's are the thin ones like the ones I did here, and mine are the nice fat splodgy American ones. Though about a third of the size of the ones you get in America, as I discovered recently...