I love potato pancakes. Sometimes I even get crazy and add shredded parsnips or sweet potatoes, but in reality any vegetable can be shredded and fried into a pancake form. Here are two recipes from The Best of Bloodroot Volume 1. One recipe is for zucchini cakes and one for beet cakes, both great local products when in season.
Zucchini pancakes
Ingredients2 medium zucchinis
1 small onion
2 eggs
2 1/2 tablespoons cornmeal
2 1/2 tablspoons AP flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
black pepper to taste
pinch baking powder
pinch sugar
2 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons oil, your choice
herbed sour cream to garnish (dill and tarragon fresh chopped and added)
Procedure
Grate the zucchini in your food processor or by hand. Grate in the small onion at the same time. Put mixture in a colander in your sink and let drain 5 minutes. Beat 2 eggs in a large bowl. Squeeze out the zucchini and add to the egg mixture. Now add your dry ingredients to the mix. Stir well and refrigerate until ready to use. To fry, melt your butter with the oil in a frying pan until hot. Form patties of the zucchini mixture about 4 inches in diameter and fry until golden brown on one side, then flip and fry other side. Press down with a spatula to flatten as they cook. Serve hot with a side of herbed sour cream.
Shredded Beet Latkes
Ingredients1 pound peeled beets
1 teaspoon fresh chopped rosemary
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons flour
2 tablespoons coconut oil or butter
2 tablespoons flour
Procedure
Peel and shred beets in the food processor or by hand. Put beets into bowl and add rosemary. Mix in salt and flour. Using a heavy frying pan, heat coconut oil or butter and get pan really hot. Now add the last 2 tablespoons of flour to thicken mixture. Form the beet mixture into thin patties about 4 inches wide and fry in pan until crisp, then turn over and fry other side. This cookbook suggests serving them with pesto mashed potatoes, I prefer to serve them with the same sour cream as above, or maybe a bit of fruit chutney.
