Zucchini Onion Pancakes Recipe

For the Summer Lovin week over at I Heart Cooking Clubs – Cooking through Mark Bittman recipes!

The cookbook “How to Cook Everything” authored by Mark Bittman is available in a handy, easy to use, full featured iPhone app. I have been browsing the recipes, getting to know the app and I am totally thrilled with it! Highly recommended if you have an iPhone. I would love to see more cookbooks available like this!

Anyway, I saw the recipe for zucchini pancakes, and knew I had to try them. We received a medium sized zucchini in our vegetable CSA share last week, so it was the perfect time to try it.

Cooking Notes

For a first try, they were very tasty, and they smelled heavenly while cooking. DH even thought they tasted good, and he is not a zucchini fan!

Unfortunately, I did mess up and the outer layer of the pancakes was too dark. Not overcooked, because the interior was cooked just right, but the outside was on the verge of being burnt.

I have a feeling my problem was that the mix was too liquidy; it was very hard to keep formed and I had a difficult time flipping them. The iPhone app recipe didn’t mention draining, but I think it’s an abridged copy of the book. ;)

Even though I did try to drain, I should have used paper towels to really reduce the extra moisture. I also think next time I might process some fresh bread crumbs before I grate the onions and zucchini.

Ingredients

Recipe makes 2 servings or 5-6 pancakes.
Inspired by Mark Bittman’s Zucchini Pancakes recipe from How to Cook Everything

• One medium zucchini or any summer squash (I didn’t peel)
• Onion (I love onion, so I used a whole Vidalia, but you might opt for only a half onion)
• 1 whole egg
• 1/4 cup whole wheat flour – next time will try freshly processed bread crumbs instead to see if it improves the texture.
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan cheese – I used 1.25 ounce of Parmesan Reggiano
• Salt & Pepper
• 2-4 Tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil – I only used 2 Tbsp, and this could also be part of my problem, not enough oil?

Cooking Instructions

1. Grate the onion and zucchini by hand or in a food processor. If possible, drain some of the liquid. I tried using a small spatter guard as a sieve, but next time, I will definitely utilize paper towels to absorb the excess moisture.
2. Mix together all the ingredients except the olive oil.
   
3. The original recipe suggests to allow the mixture to refrigerate for an hour to firm up, and next time I will start the pancake mix earlier so I have time to allow it to sit.
4. Heat a large fry/saute pan and add the oil.
5. Spoon the mixture into the pan, forming pancake shapes. Cook for approx 10-15 minutes each side until brown (not burnt). The photo below displays how the pancake is supposed to look when finished cooking.
   
6. Serve and be prepared for greatness. Yum, these were delicious even though the outside was a bit burned.

I am definitely cooking these again, especially since rumor has it, summer squash is on the CSA share list again this week! Yay!

Tonight, I served the pancakes with pork chops, mushrooms and beets. I sauteed the mushrooms in the same pan after the pancakes finished cooking.

Other resources

http://annmah.net/2008/09/19/zucchini-pancakes-two-ways/
http://www.macheesmo.com/2009/09/zucchini-pancakes/

IHCC

For the Summer Lovin week over at I Heart Cooking Clubs – Cooking through Mark Bittman recipes!

UPDATE July 7, 2010:

We found an old rusted Wagner cast iron skillet at a yard sale this weekend; DH sanded down the thin layer of rust and I seasoned with olive oil for a few hours in the oven.

I “christened” the skillet last night with another batch of zucchini onion pancakes – with some chopped garlic scapes. This batch came out better than the first one. I made sure to squeeze out a good amount of liquid from the squash before. They still were a little bit too “browned” but they were soo tasty!