Spicy Vegetable Chickpea Pancakes

A few weeks ago after a nice lie in and having done the Sunday morning excitement of cleaning the flat, lunchtime had arrived. However knowing we were going out for a all you can eat Chinese that evening, we needed something fairly light for lunch... The only problem being that the fridge was pretty bare apart from half a carton of tomatoes and 3 tired looking cauliflower florets leftover from the Cheesy Cauliflower Pizza and a few other odds and ends lurking in the salad draw...

So what to do....Fortunately my B has become quite tolerant of eating vegetables, and in general vegetarian meals so that seemed a fairly logical route as we had no meat or fish to hand. I had remembered seeing a while back a recipe for pancakes made with chickpea flour (known as Gram or Besan flour) that didn't require anything other than water and a little stock powder - result! They are also known as Socca but I find that word doesn't seem as attractive to me! Makes me think of American football!

I looked at a few different recipes, and after perusing No Bread is an Island's post about these pancakes made one of his versions. And they were delicious! I wasn't too sure how many pancakes we would end up with but this just made 3, in a 24cm frying pan, which was ideal. Mine is from Dunelm Mill, who accidentaly shipped me the wrong one a few months back and its been invaluable, I have been thoroughly testing it and its brilliant value for money, holding up to whatever I throw at it, so to speak!

Now I will be honest in that the ingredients are not measured as since sharing a kitchen, I felt a bit odd writing things down with a stranger often present but have tried to remember it as best as I can! I also accidentally fried mine in oil, rather than in a dry pan but it made them so crispy it was a happy accident!

The filling for the pancakes was pretty much made up as I went along. After the discovering of grated cauliflower during the pizza recipe, I repeated for the filling as it cooks so fast that way. The grated mozzarella was also leftover from the pizza recipe, and stored in the freezer and it worked perfectly, is also suitable for vegetarians too. Though if you wanted to make it vegan just simply leave it out.

Makes 3 pancakes

Ingredients:

Pancakes-
100g chickpea flour
1tsp vegetable powder
225ml water
1 tsp oil + extra for greasing pan

Filling-
Approx 200ml passatta
1 tsp cumin seeds
1 tsp ground coriander
3 grated cauliflower florets
1 tbsp fresh coriander leaves
3 tbsp grated mozzarella
2 sliced spring onions
1/2 diced red pepper
1/2 small green chilli
s&p

Start by heating a dash of oil in a small saucepan, fry the pepper, cauliflower and spring onions until softened, stir in the chilli, cumin and passatta and allow to simmer away whilst making the pancakes, it should be a fairly dry mixture.

To make the pancakes, mix the flour, water, olive oil and stock powder together until smooth - it will be fairly runny.

Heat 1 tbsp oil in the frying pan to a medium-hot heat. Swirl in the batter mixture and turn the pan to form a thin pancake. Cook for about two minutes or until golden brown and flip briefly to cook the inside for a further minute or less. Place on kitchen paper and repeat to make a further 2 pancakes.

Season the filling to taste, add the mozzarella and fill the pancakes. Serve immediately.

On the inside: