Bloggers around the World - Greece - Tomato Pancakes / Keftedes and the case of the spookily disappearing feta

This month’s country for ‘Bloggers Around the World’ by Chris over at Cooking Around the World is Greece.  Now this is one of my fave  blog challenges but sadly I have not managed to enter for a few months but, as it was I that suggested Greece, I really really am deffo going to get at least one post in for it.  Kinda feel I should!

That said, as my failure to take part in the other months has been due to time constrictions (either in making the dish or in posting it having made it – now that’s really irritating) I decided to start with a quick snack style option and see if I can get more of a main course in later in the month.  --As I’m now posting this at the very end of the month the obvious answer to that was no.  L  Doh!

Now I had intended to serve these tomato pancakes/fritters/keftedes* with a nice authentic Greek hummus to dip into.  Until that is, I started doing my research and found that hummus isn’t really Greek.  It’s most likely Middle Eastern in origin; although it does seem to be one of those things that’s gets argued about, but the earliest reference found for it is in Egypt (13thC) and the word Hummus is Arabic for Chickpea which seems fairly conclusive to my mind. 

 So - a little crumbled feta and some tasty olives would have to do the trick instead.  Hmm – where did that feta go?  One day it was in the fridge and the next – poof – it had vanished in a puff of (Halloween) magic!  Must have been the really big fridge dwelling mice the Chap tells me we have.  The ones that leave human sized bite marks in blocks of cheddar… !!  I settled for some shavings of goats cheese with the olives instead.

*I came across this recipe first on the BBC Good Food website then found it on the original blog.  [I've asked the blog owner for permission to post the recipe but had no response but the blog has been dormant for the last 3 years so I’m going to post it anyway, especially as she said a Greek lady gave her the recipe in the first place.  Plus I made a couple of small tweaks.  Still with me so far?!]  It’s called tomato pancakes there so I tried to find the translation for ‘pancakes’ into Greek.  Hmm – I don’t read the Greek/Phoenician alphabet though which came up with τηγανίτες or κρέπα, so after a little more pottering on google it seemed that keftedes was a close approximation to fritters/pancakes.  Having seen several very similar recipes to this that termed them fritters instead of pancakes I think it’s ok to adopt this term for them.  [Quite possibly any Greek person reading this is wincing at my torturous mishandling of their fair language though as it really isn't ok to use ‘keftedes’ in this way, if so my apologies to you!]  Also my apologies to anyone who just waded through this paragraph and wondered what the point was.  Believe me – I often wonder the same myself when I've been wittering on at length without appearing to get anywhere!

However; we have got to some beautiful warm islands in the blue blue sea and come upon Greece.  I haven’t yet been lucky enough to visit Greece but it’s on my definitely-want-to list.  I imagine the tomatoes there to be bursting with fresh flavour and that these simple little pancakes are a joy to eat.  Here’s how to make them:

Greek Tomato Pancake / Keftedes

5 Tomatoes

2 Spring Onions

1 Egg

Up to 120g Plain Flour

1 tsp Baking Powder

1-2 tsp dried oregano or fresh if you have it

1 tsp Sea Salt

Freshly ground black pepper to taste

Olive oil for frying

As some of my toms were on the small size I used 6 for the recipe so needed all the flour.  Add up to 100g first is my advice then add the rest if needed.

Slice toms in half round the ‘waist’ – this makes them easier to grate than slicing them top to bottom I found out after the first attempt!

Grate into a colander over a bowl to catch the juice.  (Use this up in soup etc.)

Finely chop the spring onions and mix into the toms.

Beat the egg and whisk into the mix.

Sift in the flour and beat in bit by bit.  Add the seasonings and beat in well too.  Add enough flour to make a thick batter – preferably sans lumps; unless they're the tomatoes!

Heat oil in a non-stick frying pan and cook in spoonfuls – 3 to 4 at a time depending on the size of your pan.  Cook until golden – they must be cooked through or can be a bit nastily mushy as the tomatoes are naturally full of moisture. 

I tried these on the bloke and he said they were ‘ok’.  Damned by faint praise!  I did tend to agree with him though.  I think the issue is that as aforementioned the toms in Greece are probably rather more flavourful than those here, especially at this time of year.  So – use lovely vine-ripened ones of the best quality would be my advice.  Oh – and don’t skimp on the salt; tomatoes are one of those things that really need it to bring the flavour out.

Eating these with the olives worked really well though so I think they are one of those things that contrast well; provide a good foil for something with a bit more depth of flavour.

So – a tasty relatively quick thing to knock up but make it in the summer when the toms are at their best.  Enjoy.  J

Breakfast reminisce

Can you guess what I had for brekkie today?  Yup - left over pancakes it was.  I am a fan of the savoury item but - it isn't pancake day [and yes - I know it really isn't pancake day today anyway as that was yesterday but bear with me here] without some good old lemon and sugar action.  This is how we always had them when I was small and it was a family affair.  We would crowd round ma in the kitchen, no doubt getting right under her feet as is the wont of 3 small girls when there's treats in the offing. All waiting for the next one to be cooked.  They weren't eaten until the whole batch was done when we all sat at the table together with both ma and dad, but for the limited attention span of a small child watching a pancake cooking is the ideal sort of time scale to witness that magical change in state from a liquid gloopy batter to a gently golden circle alive with potential and just awaiting the application of your topping of choice.  Whilst we may have flirted with freshly squeezed orange and sugar, or even chocolate spread, it is the lemon and sugar that I still return to now.  The sour zing of the lemon and crunch of the sweetly tempering sugar works it's magic on my tastebuds and memories alike.  :-)

Pancake Day

It's the day of pancakes. Or shrove tuesday for many. Thing is pancakes came about as they were made of things that needed using up before lent right? Yet now people have to actually go out and buy the ingredients especially as they don't make stuff from scratch anymore; or even worse buy one of those shake it up ready mixes in order to have the 'traditional' pancake. Now is it me but isn't that a little out of keeping with the whole ethos behind it? Me as an aetheist - I get to have as many pancakes as I want (and I make them from scratch) but shouldn't modern day believers be eating up all their ready meals or something instead nowadays?
I would like to emphasize that I am in no way anti-religious but you get my point about capitalism hi-jacking an already hijacked religious festival in order to sell more batter mix yes?
 Anyway, apropos to this they had the annual pancake race at work today.

Enjoy yours if you have them - but make them yourself huh?  It's easy:
4oz flour - sift it into a bowl.  Make a well in the centre and add 0.5 pint of milk beaten together with one egg.  Beat it all well together to ensure there's no lumps and fry in a non-stick pan with the minimum of oil.  Expect the first one to be rubbish.  :-)

Palindrome (& pancake) day

It's a palindrome day.  A palindrome is something that reads the same backwards as forwards which is true of the date today - 21.02.2012.  [Warning - there's probably rather more information that you want there.]  It's also pancake day - here's some I had for lunch with maple syrup on - yum!  Oddly they hadn't got the most traditional / common choice of lemon juice and sugar available.

I shall make the Chap and I pancakes for tea tonight and have been thinking of the idea of incorporating ingredients into the batter a la the Full Brekkie Pancake experiment.  (Something I must return to incidentally.)  I'm thinking grated cheese included in the batter with a filling of spinach, mushrooms and tomatoes.  Or perhaps the spinach could be in the batter too along with the cheese?  I shall have to experiment and see what turns out...  Enjoy - whatever way you do them!

Foodie day!!

Well - it's pancake day anyway - but I also learnt today that it's British Pie week. Oh - and it's International Women's Day. So - off you go and think up something to combine those 3! I'm planning on pancakes tonight - although which ones out of regular, scotch (drop/griddle scones), crepes, blini, boxty, oriental, american buttermilk... hmmm - flat foodstuff is evidently a universal constant huh? Enjoy if you too are partaking and I promise I'll have a proper post for you tomorrow - all about limpets no less!
Oh - just in case - basic pancake batter recipe:
4oz plain flour - but if all you've got is self raising that's fine
0.5 pint milk
1 egg
Whisk egg and milk together then whisk in sieved flour bit by bit. Add a pinch of salt if they're to be served savoury. Oh - or sieve flour into bowl then add whisked milk and egg to it bit by bit. Either or. So long as you sieve the flour and you've got a half decent balloon whisk - metal for preference - it'll only take a couple of mins to get a double cream consistency smooth lump-free batter. Not worth getting the FP out for I'd say.
Heat oil in pan - fry.
That's it! Have fun. :-)

The Full Brekkie Pancake - you saw it here first!

Having a hankering for pancakes (savoury, not the sweet kind) for breakfast I started thinking - why not just include the mushrooms and cheese in the mix rather than adding after and then rolling as I would normally do. Thus was the Full Brekkie Pancake born!!!

FBP
1 egg
0.5 pint milk
1 oz oats
3 oz plain flour
S+P
Mushroom - 1 field / 3ish regular
Cheddar - handful grated
1tsp tarragon
EVOO

Put oil in pan to heat. Chop mushrooms up into smallish [remember they shrink on cooking] bits and add to pan. Add a pinch / to taste of tarragon / your fave herb and a little salt.
Whilst the mushrooms cook whisk together the egg & milk and season.
Stir in the oats then whisk in the flour bit by bit trying to ensure there's no lumps of flour.
Stir in the grated cheese.
Check mushrooms - you want to cook them fairly dry rather than have them soggy in the middle of a pancake. I cooked with the lid on the pan to start with to ensure they softened up rather than going orange and charred [I personally can't stand mushrooms like this] then removed the lid to evaporate off the moisture.
Stir mushrooms into batter mix. You'll have an unappetising lumpy slightly grey mix at this point.
Regrease pan and bring back up to heat.
Cook as you would pancakes normally, spreading mix on first contact with pan to ensure an even distribution of the 'bits'.
Serve.

You can eat plain or spread a little chutney or chilli jelly &c &c &c over and roll up. However you fancy it really.

The verdict - it's an idea with potential but next time I'd forget the *oats. They just made the whole thing too heavy and stodgy to my mind. Due to the thickness of the batter this recipe only yielded 3 pancakes which made each one fairly thick and weighty. Again due to the oats, these drank up the salt so need seasoning generously if you make them with the oats in. I think I’d make it a large handful of cheese next time too! Worth refining though so watch this space, the FBP will be back! :-D
*If omitting the oats use 4 oz flour instead of 3.