Wholemeal Pancakes with a Spicy Bean Filling

Dish: Wholemeal Pancakes with a Spicy Bean Filling

Difficulty: Filling - easy, Pancakes.... let's just say we are pancakely challenged

Utensils Used: Wooden Spoon, Measuring Spoons, Spatula

Cock Ups: A little wild interpretation with some ingredients and some missing eggs. And pancakes. Yes.

Recipe Book: Sainsbury's Vegetarian Cookery by Sarah Brown (don't expect to find this one in the shops - it's as old as me, liberated by the Boyfriend's mother from a clear out at work... I think.)

Cooking: Did I say a week? Yeah, that was probably always going to be optimistic.

Anyway, I'm here now! With a brand new (old) recipe book.

Things started so well with an instruction to steam the 375g of French beans (trimmed and diced). Does anyone even have steamers anymore? They were dead popular for a while. I remember my mother reading this hot tip that the water collected by the steamer was full of nutrients and you should drink it. Needless to say, that experience put me off steamers forever.

So, I boiled my beans until they were just cooked and fried an onion until it was just soft.

As I was scanning down the spices I needed to measure out (2tsp Garam Masala, 1 pinch of chilli powder,1/2 tsp Tumeric) and make into a paste, I realised I didn't have any eggs for the pancakes. Hence there being a phone in this picture. I had to call Mum and get her to give an egg to the Boyfriend when he was on his way back from a run. Mum thought it was funny, the Boyfriend not so much. Well, running home with a box of eggs would probably look a little ridiculous I suppose...

The paste (a little too much water, oops) was then added to the onions and cooked for another few minutes.

Then I had to mix in 150ml of natural yoghurt. I figured this was about the amount left in the bottom of our pot and decided to forgo measuring it out. I also didn't have cornflour as stipulated by the recipe, substituting it with plain flour instead, upping the measurement a little. As is my precise and scientific approach to cooking. Yes, I know, I ask for disaster when I'm cooking...

The beans were added to the mix, making a sauce that was slightly too runny, if the picture in the recipe book was anything to go by, so I left it boiling down a bit and kept my fingers crossed.

Now it was pancake time. The disgruntled Boyfriend had reappeared with eggs and an admonishment about not reading the recipe properly when I asked him to buy the ingredients earlier. Yup. My bad.

The recipe said wholemeal flour, but we didn't have any, so we mixed 1/2 pint of milk, 1 egg and 4oz of plain flour and whisked it to a smooth batter. Reading through the recipe now, I've just noticed I was supposed to put a bit of oil in it too. Er... I must have missed that. I don't think it would have rescued our pancakes, all the same.

Smooth batter ready to go, it was time to get tossing. In the totally non-rude sense.

 Even with the Boyfriend on hand to use his pancake tossing skillz, our pancakes left a lot to be desired. In the picture in the recipe book, they looked like this:

Ours looked more like:

Yeah. But look at the fierce concentration that went into making them:

Washing Up Required: A fair amount. But it would have been even more if I'd used a steamer.

Result: The sauce did eventually boil down (liberally spattering my hob with blobs of yoghurty sauce) and looked fresh and tasty. The pancakes... euh.

Taste Test: The sauce was very nice - light and summery. The pancakes weren't exactly detrimental to the dish, but I don't think anything was gained for the effort endured to make them. Rice would have done just as nicely.

The Boyfriend gave it 5/10. I'm satisfied with that!

Overall Verdict: Easy enough, and tasty. I'd make this again, sans pancakes.

(not)Wholemeal Pancakes with a Spicy Bean Filling