Yummy potato pancakes with vegetable stew...


A great vegetarian recipe...

From my favorite recipe resource, Epicurious.com . This is a great vegetarian recipe for a main course, or it would also be a great side dish if you had some sort of fleshy meat thing to serve. It really does serve 4 though, so if you do this as a side dish you may want to reduce the amounts. You could also substitute sweet potatoes for the potatoes, if you lightly sprinkled them with flour (sweet potatoes are lower in starch than normal potatoes.) The orange zest really makes the stew pop. Actually the stew would be great all on its own. Also, this is about as healthy as you can get, so feel free to eat a box of oreos afterwards, and wash 'em down with a couple pints of ale.

Vegetable stew
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 cup chopped onion
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange peel
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
12 ounces 1/2-inch cubes zucchini
1 28-ounce can diced tomatoes
1 15 1/2-ounce can garbanzo beans (chickpeas), rinsed, drained
12 Kalamata olives, pitted, chopped

Potato pancakes:
2 pounds russet potatoes, peeled, coarsely grated, squeezed dry in towel
1/3 cup grated onion
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
Nonstick vegetable oil spray
4 teaspoons olive oil

For vegetable stew:
Heat oil in heavy large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion; sauté until tender, about 5 minutes. Add next 4 ingredients; stir 1 minute. Add zucchini and tomatoes with juices; bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until zucchini is tender, stirring occasionally, about 10 minutes. Add garbanzos and olives; simmer 3 minutes.

For potato pancakes:
Preheat oven to 300°F. Mix first 3 ingredients in bowl. Season with salt and pepper. Working in batches, spray large nonstick skillet with nonstick spray; add 1 teaspoon oil. Heat over medium-high heat. Add potato mixture by 1/3 cupfuls, spreading each to 3-inch round. Cook until pancakes are brown, about 5 minutes per side. Transfer to baking sheet; keep warm in oven.

Place 3 pancakes on each of 4 plates. Spoon stew over and serve.

Posted: Wed - September 7, 2005 at 03:38 PM        

©