Savory pancakes with vegetable stir fry

School vacations have begun and that means fancy breakfasts for my son who needs many many things from hour to hour to keep him from bouncing off the walls! Involving him in the cooking process makes it one less activity for me to think of.

Looking through the many wonderful brekky ideas online I found Archana's latest post on pancakes and realised that it had been more than a month since I had made any - power of suggestion kicked in and I soon had the little tyke mucking around in the kitchen elbow deep in flour and generally keeping busy :).

Its difficult to get my husband to eat anything sweet or fruit based in the morning so I rummaged through my stock and found these:





Voila! Decided to rustle up a healthy stir fry with all those green vegetables and stuff them in the pancakes for a super filling breakfast - this would also mean a simple salad for office lunch instead of having to make a big meal. All in all, a winner in my book!

Pancakes : I took the recipe directly from here. I had never used baking powder in them before and I was happy to see that using it made the pancakes so much fluffier. Tx Archana :).

As these are not dessert crepes, don't brown them too much and make them as thin as possible by swirling the tava around so they can roll around the filling.

Stir Fry :

1. One cup assorted vegetables chopped lengthwise into thin strips. Cabbage and capsicum are essential for the taste.
2. One tsp light soya sauce.
3. A few cubes tofu or paneer (optional) seasoned with salt and pepper and kept aside.
4. One onion and few cloves garlic julienned into strips.
5. Thai sweet chilli sauce to taste.
6. Two eggs.
7. One tbsp olive oil.
8. One tsp sesame oil.
9. Chopped corriander or cilantro leaves.

Method:

1. Make thin pancakes and stack on a plate.
2. Heat the olive oil in a wok/deep pan and make a thin omlete with the two eggs. Set aside on a plate - roll and cut into long strips.
3. In the same pan, saute onions on garlic for 5 seconds on high heat and then add the soya sauce. Stir for a few seconds
4. Add the vegetables and toss for a few seconds till just crunchy.
5. Now add the tofu or paneer pieces and fry for 10 more seconds.
6. Season with salt, pepper, chili sauce and chopped corriander leaves.
7. Stir once to mix, add the sesame oil and omlete strips and finish by stirring one last time for a few more seconds.



8. Place some of the filling on one side of each pancake and roll.
9. Serve hot on a plate piled with the remaining stir fry.

Pesarittu with upma

This is a great recipe for when you have stored left over upma in the fridge - its also very filling and can be used for Sunday brunch. I learnt about this combination from my house help - she is from Andhra Pradesh (in South India) and this is apparently a regular breakfast staple there.

Pesarittu (green moong dal pancakes or dosas):

Ingredients:

1. One cup whole green moong dal washed and soaked overnight in water.
2. Salt to taste.
3. A little oil for frying the dosas.

Method:

1. Grind the dal in a blender or dosa grinder with as much water from the soaking liquid as it needs to make a thick batter. Add salt to taste.
2. Take a spoonful of the batter and drop onto a heated gridle or tava to make a thick dosa or pancake.
3. Pour a tsp of oil over the dosa and turnover when the edges leave the tava.
4. Fry on the other side and flip over again.
5. Now place a generous helping of the upma on one half of the dosa and cover with second half (like making a stuffed omlette).
6. Leave on the tava for a few seconds to heat through and slide out on a serving plate.
7. This can be served with any chutney or pickle for a nutritious and filling breakfast.



Upma : Roast a cupful of semolina in a pan and remove from heat. Add a tbsp of oil in the same pan and crackle a few mustard seeds and curry leaves. Add one sliced onion and fry till transparent. Now add one sliced tomato and half a cupful of fresh or frozen chopped vegetables to the pan. Stir for a few seconds, add half a tsp turmeric powder and salt to taste, cover with water and bring to a boil. Now add the roasted rava and mix through to make a "lumpy" upma.

Rava Vade

Ingredients :

1. Half a cup or roughly 100 gms of semolina.
2. Half a cup of yoghurt.
3. One tsp each of chopped green chillies and corriander leaves.
4. One small onion chopped.
5. 1/2 tsp baking soda
6. Salt to taste.

Method :

1. Roast the semolina taking care that it doesn't change colour for two minutes.
2. Remove from heat and mix in the dry ingredients (no. 3 to 6).
3. Now add the yoghurt a little at a time to make a dough of roughly the following consistency. You can use more or less of the curds depending on the texture.



4. Wet hands with water, scoop out some of the mixture onto a square of cling film or a clean sheet of plastic and shape into flat vadas.



5. Carefully slide them one at a time into hot oil and deep fry.



These vadas are a great accompaniment with upma.