Carrot Pancakes. Different ways to prepare carrots.

As you probably have guessed, there will be oh so many more recipes of pancakes. If anyone still doesn’t know, this is my absolutely favourite food. At some point, actually, I had an idea to do a pancake blog. But perhaps I will do a nice cookbook one day, I can already imagine the structure, the photos, which recipes I would put in it!

A lot of people think pancakes are only for breakfast. Definitely not! A lot of people think that pancakes can only be sweet and eaten as a desert. I prove them wrong, just like my boyfriend’s friend Alejandro, who was one of the disbelievers of pancakes as a meal. A lot of people think pancakes are unhealthy. I can assure you that this is not necessarily the case. You can make them with fruits or vegetables, which would get you some of your 5 a day, you can make them fat-free (I did these recently for my friend Georgia and her sister who are allergic to fat. Would you like me to put up a recipe of these?), you can make them with skimmed milk, yoghurt (recipe), coconut milk, or even water! It’s really not worth getting pancake mix because it is so easy to make them at home with things you have got in your cupboard. And the ingredients required are usually essentials like flour, eggs, it’s always handy to have some baking powder or baking soda knocking around.

So the pancakes we’re going to be making today are carrot pancakes, which I make very often because there always seem to be some carrots in the kitchen, that need to be used up. These can be made savoury or sweet, depending whether you put some finely chopped (or grated) onions or some sugar in the batter. I have tried many different ways of putting the carrots in. You can try them out and see which one you like most and let me know about it, the varieties I have tried are:

• ·       Chubby carrots. Grate the carrots through a cheese part of the grater, the bits will be quite chunky and you will be able to see and taste the carrots quite clearly. This method is quite quick, because they’re grated easily. If you’re making them this way, I would also suggest to fry them up in a tablespoon of oil before putting them into the batter, it will uncover more taste in them.
• ·       Skinny carrots. Grate the carrots through the grater that’s similar to the tiny one you grate nutmeg with. It requires a bit more effort and time, but trust me, it’s worth it! It makes the batter smoother and the colour gorgeous. This one is probably great if you have children that are against vegetables – you can’t taste the carrots that much but you’re still getting your vitamin A!
• ·       Carrot smoothie. This one has been discovered recently when I was cooking in a flat where my boyfriend’s brother stays. Obviously, it was too naïve to expect him to have a grater. What we did is peeled the carrots, chopped them up and added them into the blender with the liquid ingredients, like eggs and yoghurt. After a few minutes it turned into a beautiful orange smoothie that was perfect for the batter and made the most beautiful orange pancakes.

I’m going to tell you the recipe of carrot smoothie pancakes, but the same recipe can be used if you’re making other carrots, just adjust the ingredients like yoghurt and flour so that the batter would be the right consistency (drippy, similar to crème fraiche).

The recipe makes enough for 3 hungry men (or pancake lovers) for dinner, or for about 5 as a normal meal.

Ingredients

1 kg carrots

6 eggs

1 and 1/4 cup yoghurt

2 cups flour

pinch of salt

4 tablespoons of oil

sugar (if you’re making them sweet)

you can also add some baking powder/baking soda to make them extra fluffy

Prepare your carrot smoothie and add all the remaining ingredients mixing well in between. It is really handy to have a non-stick pan and it’s really important to fry them slowly on a low heat!! This allows them to cook inside and take their time to fluff up. Fry is a scary word, but you don’t really need to add any oil to the pan, as there is some in the batter and it should not stick. If it does, that perhaps your pan is not cleaned properly, but usually it’s just the first ones that stick and the rest are fine. They will need about 5 minutes on their first side and 3 on the other. The safest bet is to check them – the colour, the consistency (press one with a spatula) and judge from that.

Pancakes usually take a longer time to make, as you need several pans unless you have a gigantic one! I like to serve them all at once, so while other ones are nicely browning up, I put the rest on a tray in the oven with about 80C temperature. Serve with yoghurt, crème fraiche, jam, sugar, honey, savoury ones with mustard or some nice sauce with herbs.. The possibilities are endless!!

Enjoy!!