3000 miles 'til dinner.

Original MIL Mission #38: Minted Zucchini & Feta Pancakes

Funny coincidence: I was at my friend’s house for a BBQ recently, and she had made zucchini pancakes as an accompaniment to the barbecued filet mignon. I thought it was delicious! And quite summery. So I was delighted when I saw MIL’s mission for zucchini pancakes, let alone minted and with feta.

The hubby and I were having friends over for dinner. We were making a tri-tip roast, so I thought the zucchini pancakes would be perfect for our side dish.

♥HOW I MADE IT.♥

Here are my ingredients.

I started off by making the creme fraiche since I knew it had to stand for a while. I mixed the heavy cream and yogurt into a small bowl, covered and set aside.

Then on to the zucchini shredding. I was again lamenting the fact that I lost the shredder attachment to my food processor, so I did it the old school, sweat-off-your-brow way with my manual shredder.

Six little… er, medium… zucchinis (I was making a double batch for the friends).

And shredding along…

Phew! Once all the zucchini had been shred, I whisked the eggs in a large bowl.

I added the zucchini to the eggs, followed by the feta, onion, herbs and pepper. (The recipe doesn’t state when you add the zucchini — before or after the feta, onion, etc. — so I chose to add it before, but I’m not sure if there’s any difference. Maybe MIL can shed some light!)

Alright. I think we’re getting somewhere. The smell of the basil and mint was so tantalizing. Green power!

Then I stirred in the flour and baking soda and gradually incorporated everything together.

And here’s my finished batter.

I took out my griddle and started heating the oil over medium heat. MIL told me that I should be very “liberal” with my oil (I tend to shy away from lots of oil…) so that they get crispy, since that is after all, the best part of these pancakes. 

I spooned out the pancake batter onto my hot griddle and flattened them with my spatula.

I flipped them over after the bottoms started to look a bit solid. Woo hoo! All came out intact and were browning nicely.

I flattened and flipped a couple more times to get them as brown (and hopefully crispy) as possible. 

♥MIL MISSION #38: ACCOMPLISHED.♥

And there you go. Good old summer, fried fun in a little package. Super delicious. I made a not-so-small mistake with the creme fraiche though. I knew it had to stand at room temp, but I guess I neglected to read the recipe detail that it had to stand for 8 - 24 hours. So needless to say, when we were ready to serve the meal (about 1.5 hours after making the creme fraiche), it was still a watery mixture. Whoops! I didn’t have any applesauce or apples per MIL’s wing-its, so I whipped up a yogurt, garlic and salt mixture that my friend suggested, and it went very nicely with the pancakes — thank goodness for friends with more cooking experience than me!

But we did have a second round of pancakes (yes, our meal turned into a day-long event!), and by then, the creme fraiche was ready. I was amazed at how thick it got, and that dairy can sit out at room temp for that long! You learn something new every day.

♥PLATE IT, ATE IT, GRADED IT.♥

scale: 0 (not at all) to 5 (very)

Cupboard to table time: 45 minutes (not including the creme fraiche, but including the manual zucchini grating)

Difficulty: 2

Deliciousness: 4 (I’d like to get them even crispier the next time around… I guess that means even more oil!)

Impressed Husband (and crowd) factor: 5 (even if I wanted them crispier, I got rave reviews all around the table)

Leftover-friendly: None. All gobbled up!