Tuesday 9 February 2016

Shrove Tuesday Aquafaba Crepes with Haggis

Greetings on this Shrove Tuesday (aka Pancake Tuesday).  I had a go at aquafaba crepes today.  They were good but perhaps not quite as thin as they should be.  I usually make fat fluffy pancakes but today I wanted them thin enough to wrap around some leftover vegan haggis.

I have mentioned before that I have a vision of making a tartan haggis meal.  On my first attempt at tartan haggis, I piped sweet potato and tomato sauce over mashed potato and haggis.  The piping was far too thick.  On the weekend I had a go at piping much thinner stripes.  It is better.  I need to do away with my shaky hand.  And I really wanted a brighter green but my spinach was from dubious sources.  (Curse you, salmonella outbreak in bags of baby spinach!)

The tartan haggis quest continues.  Meanwhile I had lots of haggis and green cheese sauce leftover.  I made a fairly standard fast track pizza with tomato sauce, haggis and grated cheese.  While it baked I made a vegan cheese sauce.  I based in on Dreena's vegveeta sauce but doubled the cashews, added some garlic powder. I placed half in a squeezy bottle (the white half) and then added a few handfuls of basil and garlic plus a good handful of cooked green peas.  It never went green enough but tasted of peas and basil, ie a little sweet but full of flavour.

For Shrove Tuesday, I really wanted a savoury pancake.  It suited me for it to be vegan.  And I am still fascinated by the miracles of chickpea brine or aquafaba.  I finally found a reason to hang onto my balloon whisk when whisking the aquafaba.  At first the mixture was a little too thick to swirl around the pan.  I thinned it down and made another half batch of pancake mixture (because I had the aquafaba).  So a batch and a half made 8 pancakes.  I wonder if I should have thinned the mixture more.

 When it came to stuffing the pancakes or crepes, they rolled up really easily.  I spread the middle with green pea cheese sauce and then sprinkled lots of haggis along it.  I rolled it up placed it in a greased pan.  It was covered in more cheese sauce, tomato sauce and some grated (vegan) biocheese.  I cooked it for about 15 minutes.  The biocheese was disappointing after having it melt so nicely on toast but I guess it looked good and the cheese sauce gave the cheesy flavour.  It was so filling that one stuffed pancake would have been enough each.  Again I questioned if I had made the pancakes too thick.

Overall I was delighted with these pancakes.  Sylvia loved them with some grated cheese in them and rolled up.  The three of us the last one with nutella in it.  They are quite lacy textured, as aquafaba baking tends to be.  It is a brilliant recipe to use up aquafaba and make easy pancakes.  I will experiment with making thinner ones and report back.

I am sharing these crepes with Kimmy at Healthy Vegan Fridays, Jac at Meat Free Mondays, Karen for Cooking with Herbs.

More pancake recipes on Green Gourmet Giraffe:

Pancakes filled with potato and lentils
Pea pancakes with sun-dried tomato pesto 
Spinach pancakes  (gf, v)

Almond meal pancakes (gf)
Banana oat pancakes (v)
Chocolate pancakes with berries and chocolate sauce
Pancakes with oats and cornmeal
Pumpkin buckwheat pancakes
Spiced carrot pancakes

Aquafaba crepes
Adapted from Clean Real Food Highs
Makes about 6 large crepes

1 cup aquafaba
1 cup flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
4-6 tbsp milk or water

Whisk aquafaba by hand to make it frothy.  Gradually whisk in flour, salt and baking powder.  Slowly whisk in water until you have a thin mixture (like pouring cream, only just thicker than milk).

Preheat heavy bottom non stick frypan over medium to medium high heat.  (I needed medium high).  Lightly grease pan (I used a light coating of margarine for the first and then a spray of oil spray between crepes.)

Now add 1/4 to 1/2 cup of mixture to pan and swirl to cover pan.  (I think my pan is about 22cm in diameter.  I used 1/2 cups of mixture but others use 1/4 cups so maybe if I had it thinner I could use 1/4 cups and make more pancakes.)

Cook until when you check the underside there is some light golden brown colour.  The edges will curl up and some bubbles will appear but neither indicate there is colour on the other side.  I found I needed to look.  Flip over and cook for another minute or two until some golden brown spots on the second side.

Stack pancakes with a clean tea towel over them.  They will soften slightly.  Stack or fill to serve as desired.  Can be stuffed and baked.

Green Vegveeta
adapted from Dreena Burton via Green Gourmet Giraffe
  • 1 cup raw cashews
  • 1 tbsp tahini
  • 1 cup milk (I used soy)
  • 2 tbsp nutritional yeast
  • 1 tbsp cornflour
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
  • 1 1/2 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice
  • 1 tsp garlic powder
  • 1/2 tsp sea salt (or to taste)
  • 1/4 tsp yellow mustard powder
  • 2 good handfuls of basil and parsley
  • 1 cup cooked green peas
Blend in a high power blender.  (If your blender is not high powered or you use a food processor you will need to soak the cashews.)

NOTE: if I had a handful of spinach or kale I would put that in too.

Vegan crepes with haggis and cheese 
serves 4

4 crepes (see above)
1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp green vegveeta sauce (above)
1/2 a batch vegan haggis
1/4 - 1/2 cup tomato sauce (such as this or this)
60g grated biocheese or other cheese

Preheat oven to 220 C

Place a crepe on a flat surface and spread about 2 tablespoons of vegveeta sauce.  Crumble 1/4 of the haggis over it.  Roll up and place face down in a greased casserole dish.  Repeat with remaining 3 crepes.  Spread remaining vegveeta sauce on the crepes.  Spread tomato sauce over the vegveeta.  Sprinkle with cheese.  Bake for about 15 minutes or until cheese has melted.

On the Stereo:
Amanda Palmer goes Down Under

21 comments:

  1. Thank you for sharing the recipe! These look so amazing.<3

    VEGETARIAN COURTESYFACEBOOK

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  2. You know, I still haven't tried out making things with aquafaba - I actually have some aquafaba I saved, waiting in a jar in the fridge, but I think it's gone moldy :| the main reason being that I don't own an electric mixer, and I'm too lazy to whisk by hand for 10 minutes to get the required consistency for meringues etc. haha. But I love how these pancakes look, and I love even more that you've made them by hand (without 10 minutes of whisking!). I will be trying these :D

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    1. Thanks Kyra - I was happy that I didn't need to get the electric beaters out - as I have never liked egg I haven't had much use for those cool old hand beaters but this makes me think there is now reason to buy some - and it is always easy to generate some new aquafaba - hope this gives you fun experimenting with AF

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  3. I am gluten free, so can I use GF flour? Rice or buckwheat flour? :)

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    1. Hi Anon - I don't know but it is worth experimenting - I also found another AF pancake recipe where the blogger substituted GF flour and a bit of sparkling water for the wheat flour but I can't find the link. For a buckwheat version you could check out these crepes and experiment with Aquafaba. http://www.coconutandberries.com/2013/09/03/b-is-for/

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  4. Very creative Johanna! Eggless crepes and vegan haggis have surely got to be a challenge! :D

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    1. Thanks Lorraine - I am used to the veg haggis but making the crepes was a challenge

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  5. I love your creativity with veggie haggis - you should have an e book of veggie haggis recipes by now. i Love the tartan pizza - its so YOU. Let your tartan quest continue.

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    1. Thanks Shaheen - veggie haggis is such fun - as you know - I think most of the challenge with my tartan quest is learning to pipe neatly :-)

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  6. What a creative Shrove Tuesday! I like the idea of making crepes with aquafaba - I am terrible though at flipping thin pancakes so would probably have to enlist my husband to do the tossing of them!

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    1. Thanks Kari - would you believe this was the easy option because I had the leftovers hanging about! I have made crepes before and both time not found them difficult to toss though I use an egg flip rather than just toss by holding the pan - good to have at least one tosser in the house :-)

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  7. I'm glad you got your haggis now and in such an inventive and goodlooking way, well done!

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    1. Thanks VegHog - agree but now I wish I had more haggis to play with

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  8. Yum - these look great. I still forget to save my acquafarba.

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    1. Thanks Cakelaw - I often don't save mine as I am worried I wont use it but this was a good way to use it up with few ingredients

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  9. My mother was excellent at making crepes on Pancake Tuesday when I was growing up; such a lovely tradition. You certainly made some wonderful crepes and how lucky was Sylvia to be able to enjoy the last one with Nutella! xx

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    1. Thanks Charlie - my mum always made thicker pancakes than crepes which I think makes them seem harder and more challenging because they are not so familiar

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  10. Wow! Those pancakes look amazing Johanna! Is there nothing aqua faba can't do??

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  11. Aquafaba is clearly meant to be the secret ingredient in crepes with its fragileness. I really like that you've made savoury crepes too - I'd much rather have cheezy ones rather than sweet ones. Is that wrong?!

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  12. Wow - what a fancy crêpe. Your family is just so lucky to have you come up with these creative and amazing meals. The things you can do with aqua faba!
    Thank you so much for sharing this at Healthy Vegan Fridays! This will be featured next week. I'm pinning & sharing!

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