Mini Garbanzo/Chickpea/Basan Pancakes With Cucumber Relish Gluten-Free

We eat chickpea pancakes on a regular basis, they make a tasty accompaniment to all kinds of snacks, main course and supper dishes. I was intrigued to marry, what might be thought of as a distinctly Gujarati 'pudla' or pancake with a traditional cucumber meze but actually there is a tasty Greek pita bread made from chickpea flour.
 

Throughout the Mediterranean and Middle East, wherever chickpeas are grown there are a whole host of gluten-free flatbreads and wraps. The most famous of these perhaps is the Tuscan 'Cecina', a chickpea flour flat bread which is baked or shallow fried. Cecina is also found in the cuisine of the Côte d'Azur, in particular Nice and is said to date from Ancient Rome. It's a bread we have often in the Winter with soup when the temperatures begin to drop and I'll be posting the recipe soon!

Pudla is a traditional breakfast dish and we certainly eat chickpea pancakes this way but they also make a great lunch with a salad and in particular marry well with cucumber.

PUDLA

Ingredients 

(makes 20)

140g (5oz) sifted chickpea flour
A generous pinch of sea salt and black pepper
250ml water
5 cloves of garlic - finely chopped
1 medium (red) onion - ditto
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon powdered turmeric
Oil or butter for cooking

Method

Put flour and sea salt and pepper into a bowl or jug. Slowly add the water whilst mixing, so as to form a smooth batter. Peel and finely chop the garlic and onion and add to mixture. Leave to stand for at least half an hour.

Dry fry the cumin seeds until they begin to crackle. Add them and the turmeric to the batter.

Melt cooking fat in a frying pan, I use certified sustainable organic palm oil or coconut oil that really enhances all the other flavours.

Depending upon the size of your pan, ladle in sufficient batter to form small thin pancakes, about 40mm (1½") diameter.

Leave to cook for approximately three minutes. Lift the edge of the pancake to test if it is cooked, it should be a golden brown in colour. Flip over but add additional fat to cook the second side.

Once cooked, set aside in a warming drawer or low oven. if you leave them long enough in the warming drawer, they will become delicately crispy and even more delicious! I discovered this by accident whilst making all this food last night and into the early hours of this morning!

TZATZIKI

Ingredients

1 Cucumber
Greek Yoghurt
1 clove of garlic (grated)
The juice of half a small lemon
Dill, lemon balm or fennel to taste
Nasturtium flowers (optional)

Method

Peel and then either grate or chop the cucumber very finely. With a sieve and your hand press down and remove as much liquid from the cucumber as possible.

Add the garlic, lemon juice, yoghurt and herbs, season with salt and pepper to taste.

Put in a cool place for the flavours to develop for at least an hour before use.

Serve pancakes just warmed, so that the cold Tzatziki makes even more impact but doesn't lose shape. This dish is however just as good cold!

Natural Colours and Flavours

Nasturtiums (Tropaeolum majus) come in many colours and shades and you can eat the flowers, leaves and make the seeds into substitute capers. I grow them all year round and one of my particular favourites is Jewel of Africa, which also comes in a variegated leaf version and looks fabulous in all sorts of dishes and as a cake decoration!

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis), of the mint family and nasturtium are nutritious, delicious and decorative. Lemon balm as the name suggests is particularly good with fish. Lemon balm and nasturtium have been known and used as medicinals for centuries. Both plants are easy to grow and as mentioned above if you have a greenhouse or a warm south-facing wall or window sill you can grow nasturtiums and have them reseed and be in flower all year round.

Enjoy!

All that needs to be said now is Bon Appėtit!

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from an old farmhouse in Normandie,

All the best, Sue

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Chickpea pancake (Pudla) with Parma ham, the Indian classic meets an Italian delicacy.

The Parma ham is optional, this being an experiment we made with our usual chickpea pancake recipe. However, it was so delicious and combined with a fresh green salad, I thought I'd post it as the example of our take on this famous Indian bread alternative.

We eat chickpea pancakes on a regular basis, they make a tasty accompaniment to all kinds of snacks, main course and supper dishes. I was intrigued to marry, what might be thought of as a distinctly Indian, Gujarati 'bread' with an Italian artisanal ham but actually there is a tasty Tuscan flatbread also made from chickpea flour.  'Cecina', baked or shallow fried, also found in the cuisine of the Côte d'Azur, in particular Nice, is said to date from Ancient Rome. It's a bread we have often in the Winter with soup and I will be including the recipe here when the temperatures begin to drop!

A word about Parma ham and other deluxe items

For people who live simply, we include some unusually luxurious items in our organic homesteader/smallholding lifestyle, these being Parma ham and Jambon de Paris, quail eggs and a whole range of seafood. How do we do it? Well the latter two are easy, we raise the quail ourselves and live by the sea, in a major French shellfish area, where gleaning from the ocean bed is pretty much a way of life. 

With regards to the ham, that is gleaning too, of sorts, for when people are paying top dollar for an item they want the best cuts. So the little bit at the end of the ham, and I say that advisedly as in many cases it weighs around a kilo, is sold off by our organic butcher as a talon or heel and at a fraction of the price.

Prosciutto di Parma or Parma ham, for those of you unfamiliar with it, is a raw, naturally air-cured leg of pork. Sea salt is the only preservative used and it can take from one to three years to cure. To find out more there is a film available here

Parma ham is eaten raw as an hors d'oeuvre but it is also a fantastic cooking ingredient.

As you can see once my talon is unwrapped I have an elegant sufficiency for so many recipes. The skin, I hang on the tree for the birds, that is unless my chickens get there first and pull it off the branches!

Basic chickpea pancake

 

Ingredients

140g (5oz) sifted chickpea flour

A generous pinch of sea salt

250ml  water

5 cloves of garlic

1 medium (red) onion

Oil or butter for cooking

Method

Put flour and sea salt into a bowl. Slowly add the water whilst mixing, so as to form a smooth batter. Peel and finely chop the garlic and onion and add to mixture. Leave to stand for at least half an hour.

Adding the Parma ham

 

Slice and chop a small quantity of ham. To bring out the flavour,  sautée for a few minutes and add to batter.

As an alternative to this try adding fresh turmeric root, chopped and  sautéed, along with other spices such as coriander, chillies and black pepper.

Melt cooking fat in a frying pan, I use certified sustainable organic palm oil. Depending upon the size of your pan, ladle in sufficient batter to form one or two thin pancakes, about 125mm (5") diameter. Leave to cook for approximately three minutes. Lift the edge of the pancake to test if it is cooked, it should be a golden brown in colour. Flip over but add additional fat to cook the second side, as these pancakes are butter-hungry!

Once cooked, set aside in a warming drawer or low oven. We added a freshly picked salad from the garden dressed with a simple vinaigrette of olive oil and raw apple cider vinegar.

Enjoy!

Please feel free to comment, ask questions and share.

Hope to see you here again for another recipe from an old farmhouse in Normandie,

Sue

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© 2014 Sue Cross