This all started with an item in the Sunday papers about how women really should do weights training. I looked at the weights, but that idea lasted all of about two seconds.
But then I spotted the tray of beans drying ready for storage. The trusty old hand grinder and five minutes grinding beans and I had a jar full of besan (bean flour) – much more fun than weights.
Which of course led to the idea of a besan based breakfast. This seems like a complex recipe, but it came together in 15 minutes, and that includes the bean-grinding time!
The Recipe
Mix together half a cup of bean flour (you can find it in whole foods shops or Asian grocers if you don’t get inspired by the idea of grinding as weight training), with one egg, a desertspoon of mild-flavoured oil (like grapeseed oil), a scant half teaspoon of bicarb, and enough water to make a pancake-style batter.
Let it sit to soak together for a couple of minutes while you finely chop a good half cupful of vegetables and herbs. For this batch I chose:
a desertspoon of ginger
a half a desertspoon of fresh turmeric
a small capsicum
a small bunch of each of chives, culantro, and mint.
It is best with Asian-style flavours, but you can vary the vegetables and herbs. Thai basil, mint, spring onions, ginger and capsicum also works well.
Mix into the pancake batter, and add half a desertspoon of soy sauce or tamari.
Fry in oil in a heavy frypan, hot but not full-bore, for a couple of minutes on each side till golden. I topped these with avocado, tomato, cucumber and chilli jam, but minted cucumber yoghurt raita and chutney is also a good topping. Makes two large or four small very yummy pancakes.
