Fresh Ingredients make the best food. We picked up our Basket yesterday from the Foodshed Farm All-Arkansas Basket-a-Month program. Inside the basket were these radiatingly bright zucchinis that we felt compelled to do something with for dinner. We searched a few cookbooks before I opened up Ina Garten's
Barefoot Contessa at Home, which was a gift from my mom this past Christmas. What I love about Contessa's cooking is her use of simple ingredients to create such beautiful, simple dishes which bring out the flavor of the key ingredients so wonderfully. The food leaves my tastebuds singing with happiness and flips a bad mood around in a blink!
Dish: Zucchini Pancakes (a la Ina Garten)
Meal: Dinner (but would be suitable for breakfast or lunch)
Recipe from Ina Garten 2006 Zucchini Pancakes
2006, Barefoot Contessa at Home, All Rights Reserved
Prep Time: 20 minInactive Prep Time: --Cook Time: 4 minLevel: EasyServes: 10 (3-inch) pancakes
Ingredients
- 2 medium zucchini (about 3/4 pound)
- 2 tablespoons grated red onion
- 2 extra-large eggs, lightly beaten
- 6 to 8 tablespoons all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- Unsalted butter and vegetable oil
Directions
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees F.
Grate the zucchini into a bowl using the large grating side of a box grater. Immediately stir in the onion and eggs. Stir in 6 tablespoons of the flour, the baking powder, salt, and pepper. (If the batter gets too thin from the liquid in the zucchini, add the remaining 2 tablespoons of flour.)
Heat a large (10 to 12-inch) saute pan over medium heat and melt 1/2 tablespoon butter and 1/2 tablespoon oil together in the pan. When the butter is hot but not smoking, lower the heat to medium-low and drop heaping soup spoons of batter into the pan. Cook the pancakes about 2 minutes on each side, until browned. Place the pancakes on a sheet pan and keep warm in the oven. Wipe out the pan with a dry paper towel, add more butter and oil to the pan, and continue to fry the pancakes until all the batter is used. The pancakes can stay warm in the oven for up to 30 minutes. Serve hot.
Make again: Definitely.
With modifications: I read some reviews online about adding some carrot and maybe some cayenne pepper to the dish. I think both of those would be resonable modifications. The size of the pancakes Jay made were smaller - the recipe turned out 16 pancakes instead of ten. We paired them with a large green salad topped with tomato and some sunflower seeds. I think these little nuggets would also pair nicely at a breakfast or brunch or even beside a soup of some kind as a substitue for bread or rolls. The texture was spongy like pancakes but sweeter than pancakes are. I thought they would require some kind of topping (not syrup, but something else) but they really are great just by themselves.