Shrove Tuesday - Asian Style Pancakes.

Shrove Tuesday - means its Pancake Day and although I am catholic I am not strict catholic, but Shrove Tuesday is always pancake day. For those of you who don't know it Shrove Tuesday is the day preceding Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent.

The reason that pancakes are eaten is that they are made from the sugar, flour, eggs and fat from which traditionally we restrict during the fasting of Lent.

Each year I try to find a different savoury pancake but we usually always finish with traditional pancakes with lemon and sugar.

This year I hunted down this recipe from taste.com.au one of my favourite places to browse for recipes. Having had a horrid day, though but having purchased the ingredients I left it up to the boys, and they said it was easy as. Although we all thought it was rather stodgy (not sure if that's the word) it was dense with the addition of the rice flour, but without it would really have just been a frittata

Preparation Time 10 minutes
Cooking Time 15 minutes
 
Ingredients (serves 6)

• 175g (1 cup) rice flour
• 8 eggs, lightly whisked
• 125ml (1/2 cup) water
• 1/4 cup finely chopped fresh garlic chives (we substituted for just chives having them in the garden)
• Salt & ground white pepper  (black pepper from my pepper mill just as good)
• 1 tbs peanut oil  (rice bran oil)
• 300g peeled green prawns (I shop in Aldi, so i used the frozen bag of green prawn meat which was 400g - used the whole bag)
• 1 red capsicum, halved, deseeded, thinly sliced
• 1 yellow capsicum, halved, deseeded, thinly sliced (used another red as we didn't have the yellow)
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 tbs finely grated fresh ginger
• 55g (1 cup) bean sprouts
• 4 green shallots, ends trimmed, thinly sliced diagonally
• 1/3 cup coarsely chopped fresh coriander

Sweet chilli dressing

• 2 tbs sesame seeds
• 2 tbs sweet chilli sauce
• 1 tbs fresh lime juice
• 1 tbs light soy sauce
• 1 tbs rice wine vinegar

Method

1. Place rice flour in a bowl. Whisk in egg and water until a smooth batter forms. Stir in chives. Season with salt and pepper. Set aside for 10 minutes to rest.
2. Meanwhile, to make the dressing, cook the sesame seeds in a small frying pan over medium heat, tossing, for 2 minutes or until toasted. Whisk together sesame seeds, sweet chilli sauce, lime juice, soy sauce and vinegar in a small bowl.
3. Preheat grill on high. Heat half the oil in a 25cm-diameter (base measurement) non-stick frying pan over high heat. Add half the prawns and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until prawns curl and change colour. Transfer to a heatproof bowl. Repeat with the remaining prawns.
4. Heat the remaining oil in the same pan. Add the capsicum, garlic and ginger and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes or until just tender. Add the prawns, bean sprouts and green shallot and cook, stirring occasionally, for 1 minute or until shallot softens slightly. Pour in pancake batter and cook for 2-3 minutes or until pancake is golden brown underneath. Cook under grill for a further 2-3 minutes or until golden brown and cooked through.

Transfer pancake to a chopping board and cut into wedges. Sprinkle with coriander and serve with dressing.