Buckwheat vegetable pancakes with spicy yogurt sauce

February 11, 2013 at 7:43 pm (C (2 stars, okay, edible), Cruciferous rich, Grains, Peter Berley, Sauce/dressing, Spring recipes, Starches, Winter recipes)

Derek and I picked this recipe from the winter section of Fresh Food Fast for dinner last night.  The pancakes are supposed to be chock full of shredded cabbage, grated carrot, scallions, and dill.  Instead of adding the shredded green cabbage, however,  I used some of my homemade sauerkraut.

The batter for the pancakes calls for 2 cups of white flour and only 1 cup of buckwheat flour, plus some milk and eggs and oil, then all the veggies and dill.  I doubled the herb and halved the salt, as I normally do with Berley’s recipes.

The pancakes came out okay.  The first batch was nicely crispy on the outside, but the second batch (without adding more oil) wasn’t nearly as crisp.  In both batches, the inside was a bit too moist and doughy, even though it was definitely cooked through all the way.

I could only taste the buckwheat when I ate the pancakes alone.  When I added the spicy yogurt sauce I didn’t detect any buckwheat at all, although I could definitely taste the dill.  Maybe my buckwheat flour wasn’t right?  It said that it was whole grain on the label, but it wasn’t grey at all.

I quite liked the combination of flavors—the dill and sauerkraut and buckwheat in the pancakes were complemented really nicely by the spicy, cilantro-y yogurt sauce.  Surprisingly, I didn’t notice any distinctive sauerkraut taste when I ate the pancakes.  But maybe the sauerkraut change the texture a bit since it’s wetter than shredded cabbage?  The texture of the pancakes was definitely not right.  If I made this recipe again, I wonder how I could improve the texture?  I also might try increasing the proportion of buckwheat flour, as I could hardly taste it.

Also, the amounts are totally off.  The recipe says it yields four servings and we made only half the recipe and got 9 pretty large pancakes from it.  Derek said he thought a serving would be one pancake (given that the whole menu also calls for a lentil soup), but even being generous and saying two pancakes is a serving the recipe would yield nine servings, not four!  I think I noticed the same thing when we made Berley’s recipe for curried chickpeas.  Apparently he eats a long more pancakes in a sitting than we do.

I thought the best part of this recipe was the spicy yogurt sauce, which reminded me a lot of an Indian raita.  The cayenne and raw garlic had  a wonderful warming effect.  The sauce didn’t seem spicy at all, just really warming and soothing.

• 1.5 cups of 1.5% yogurt (original recipe calls for 2 cups of whole yogurt)
• 1/4 cup packed chopped fresh cilantro (original recipe calls for 1/3 cup)
• 1 garlic clove, minced
• 1/2 tsp. fine sea salt (original recipe calls for 1 tsp. coarse salt)
• 1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

Rating: B- for the pancakes, B+ for the raita
Derek: B- for the pancakes, B+ for the raita