Stranger Foods

Chickpea pancakes with mango pickle yoghurt

Serves 4 | Prep 20 mins | Cook 10 mins

These vegan pancakes, flavoured with ginger, garlic and chilli, are thick, light and soft all at once - sort of like savoury American-style pancakes. Soft-boiled eggs are a welcome addition, but feel free to leave out the egg and use a yoghurt alternative if you want to keep things vegan.

Source: FLAVOUR by Ottolenghi

Ingredients

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40 ml olive oil
2 tsp fresh ginger, peeled and finely minced
2 small cloves garlic, crushed
1 green chilli, finely chopped
2 spring onions, finely chopped
60 ml sunflower oil, for frying
salt
12 fresh curry leaves (if you can't get any, use mint leaves instead, patted dry)

Batter

60 ml apple cider vinegar
1½ tsp garam masala spice mix
1 tsp ground cumin
50 g cornflour
300 ml sparkling water
1 tsp baking powder
250 g chickpea flour

Mango pickle yoghurt

150 g Greek-style yoghurt
½ mango, peeled and finely chopped
2 tbsp hot mango pickle, roughly chopped
1 lime:, finely grate the zest to get 1 tsp, then cut the remainder into wedges to serve

Instructions

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Heat the olive oil in a small saucepan on a medium-high heat. Once the oil is very hot, add the curry (or mint) leaves and fry until crisp and bright green, to . Use a slotted spoon to transfer the leaves to a plate lined with kitchen paper, leaving the oil in the pan. Take the pan off the heat for the oil to cool for a few minutes, then return it to a medium-low heat with the ginger, garlic, chilli and spring onions. Gently fry for , stirring often until soft and aromatic. Set aside to cool.
While the spring onion and ginger mixture is cooling, whisk all the batter ingredients and 1 teaspoon of salt together in a large bowl until smooth. Stir in the cooled spring onion mixture and leave for , for the flavours to come together.
Put all the ingredients for the yoghurt into a small bowl with a good pinch of salt, swirl to get streaks, and set aside.
Put ¼ tablespoon of sunflower oil into a large, non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat and swirl to coat the bottom. Once hot, pour in about 80 g of the pancake batter; don't swirl it too much - you want the pancakes to be about 12 cm in diameter. Fry for on each side, until puffed and golden-brown. Keep the pancakes warm while you continue with the remaining batter, adding more oil as needed.
Divide the pancakes between four plates, spoon the yoghurt alongside and top with the crispy curry (or mint) leaves. Serve at once with the salad and eggs, if you've made them, and the lime wedges.

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