Zucchini Pancakes

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mish

Washing Up
Joined
Oct 4, 2004
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Here you go, PDS. I've been saving several over time. Wish I could remember the ones I've made, but they're pretty similar, easy & yummy. I like them with sour cream. Hope you'll see one you like. :)


Zucchini Pancakes

3 cups zucchini, coarsely grated
1 tablespoon garlic, chopped
salt and pepper
1 large egg, slightly beaten
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1/4 cup vegetable oil, for frying
sprig mint, for garnish

Combine zucchini, garlic, salt, pepper. Add egg and stir lightly. Stir in flour. Heat oil in deep, heavy skillet. For each pancake, drop 1 heaping spoon of zucchini mixture into pan.

Flatten slightly with back of spoon and fry over medium heat about 2 to 3 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Turn very carefully and drain on paper towels. Stir mixture before frying each batch. If all the oil is absorbed, add a little more. Serve garnished with mint sprigs.

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Zucchini Cream Cheese Pancakes

5 medium zucchini, shredded very finely
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 ounces cream cheese

Mix all ingredients together thoroughly. Heat skillet on medium heat and coat with vegetable cooking spray. Drop batter on skillet, brown on both sides. They can be buttered and sprinkled with Parmesan cheese or can be served plain.

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Vegetable Pancakes - 8 servings (This might be Paula's)

1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1 egg
1/4 cup milk
1 cup grated carrots
1 cup grated zucchini
2 green onions, sliced
2 tablespoons oil

In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper. In another bowl, beat together the egg, milk, carrots, zucchini, and onions. Add this to the dry ingredients and stir until combined.

Using a large skillet, heat 1 tablespoon of oil over medium heat. Pour the batter by tablespoons into the pan, making a few pancakes at a time. Cook about 2 minutes on each side and golden brown. Add the remaining oil to the pan as needed. Serve pancakes at once.

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Poor Man's Crab Cakes
2 cups grated zuchinni
1 egg beaten
Old Bay Seasoning
1 1/2 cups Italian bread crumbs
1 tbsp mayonnaise
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder

Mix together, make 'cakes' and then fry till golden brown.

Wanted to mention too, you could experiment with adding chopped walnuts or shredded potatoes (or hash browns), chopped onions or carrots. I'd like to try making some carrot cakes (in place of the shredded zucchini) & perhaps adding raisins.
 
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Thanks so much!
I'll have Paul look the recipes over and pick one out.
They all sound good.
 
I usually salt my grated courgette and leave it in a colander to drain as long as possible...loads of water comes out!


I make fritters in the same sort of way as the top one above, no garlic but flavouring with mint and adding diced feta - very tasty combo. :chef:
 
Caro, the diced feta sounds like an excellent idea! Thank you. I've thought about slicing, salting & letting the zucchini sit in a colander. as I would eggplant (to draw out any bitterness). But wasn't sure if zucchini should follow the same procedure as eggplant. Watched Emeril do an eggplant dish and as I recall, think he said he doesn't salt the eggplant. I would. Any thoughts? TIA

BTW, zucchini fries are great too either baked or fried with butter & parmesan. Could also try a marinara dipping sauce.
 
I never bother to salt aubergine/eggplant, they don't seem bitter. We grew some this year - in our greenhouse - there are still two. They have stopped growing now, so I must use them soon! :)

The reason I salt the grated courgette/zucchini is because it can make the fritter mixture too wet...in fact, even after salting and leaving for ages, with lots of water coming out, and squeezing dry, if you add it to the fritter mixture ahead of time I find it still loses water and spoils the mix!! I add it at the last moment. [And I don't find I need to rinse the salt off, btw, it drains away in the water.]
 
Caro, thank you for the tips. How lucky you are to grow your own eggplant. I'll try your idea with the feta (in place of the cream cheese) for the pancakes or maybe in eggplant balls (they're like meatballs, only made with ep). Yummy :) I always thought salting them was to take out the bitterness. Didn't know it drew out the water as well. A tip I heard when buying an eggplant, was to purchase one lighter in weight, because it has less (bitter) seeds. Haven't tried Japanese eggplant yet, but it's on my eggplant list. Thank you again Caro.
 
Maybe older eggplant varieties were more bitter....they always taste ok unsalted these days! I have not thought about drawing out excess water from EP though - they aren't "wet" like zucchini, are they?

I have read that salting EP is also supposed to stop them absorbing sooooo much oil if you fry them - I griddle mine nowadays - works very well using my Breville griddling machine. I just put my prepared veg in a large polybag and throw in a dash of oil and shake it about to get some oil on each bit.

Have just picked an EP so guess what I'm cooking tonight :mrgreen: Along with runner beans [do you call them string beans in US?] and maybe zucchini if we still have a glut!!
 
Well I do salt the sliced aubergene/melanzane/eggplant and put some weight(a bowl or plate) over it and leave it to drain in a collander. In some recipes all those excess liquid from the vegetable are not desirable and the salt does seem to extract it in an efficient way. But I do make sure to rince them very well after that and pat/squeeze dry, otherwise they will be horridly salty!! Licia
 
Thank you, Caro and licia for all the good tips. Caro, I agree grilled veggies are so much better. (You reminded me, I should take my indoor grill out of the cupboard & use it more often.) I haven't heard of runner beans, but I'll look around for them. The markets in So. California have a wonderful selection/variety of produce. I've wanted to try (Chinese?) long beans, but that's a whole other veggie catagory :)
 
Aaaaagh!!!!

I made my recipe with the home-grown eggplant and fortunately I happened to lick the spoon just after I put it in the oven....it was incredibly bitter!!!!!

The first two we picked were absolutely fine....I don't know why this one was so awful - I don't think even salting would have got rid of it. Whyen I use the next one I will ahve to cut a piece and fry it quickly, just to test it I suppose. We are very disappointed!

I couldn't face cooking anything else so we went to the pub here in the village and had far too much to eat [and a couple of drinks I didn't need!] instead :pig:
 
Maybe our runner beans you know as snap beans? Flat, longish, lightish green with sometimes roughish skin. We usually slice them up and steam or boil till tender.
 
I found this thread when searching for something to do with all my zucchini. Picked the Poor Man's Crab Cake recipe from above and made a few changes.


Poor Man's Crab Cakes II

2 cups grated zucchini
3 Tbsp finely chopped celery
2 Tbsp finely chopped onion
3 Tbsp finely chopped pepper
1 egg beaten
1 1/2 cups Italian bread crumbs
2 Tbsp mayonnaise
1/4 tsp salt (or to taste)
1/4 tsp black pepper (or to taste)
1/4 tsp paprika
Old Bay seasiong to taste (optional)
1 tbsp baking powder


Mix together and make 'cakes' about 1/2 - 3/4" thick. Fry over medium heat in non-stick pan with 1 Tbsp oil and 1 Tbsp butter till golden brown and cooked through - about 8-10 min per side depending on the thickness

I left out the Old Bay and made and Old Bay mayo to put on top.
 
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I like the Poor Man's Crab Cake. I thought it would have Imitation crab in it. I think I'll try it.
 
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