Enoki Mushroom Pancakes with Cucumber Kimchi

Here's another dish from Hema Parekh's The Asian Vegan Kitchen. Both of these are from the Korea chapter - I made the cucumber kimchi a few weeks ago. This is a sort of quick refrigerator kimchi - not the traditional fermenting process with the vegetables.

The vegetable pancakes use a batter consisting of all-purpose wheat flour, rice flour, and potato starch. Instead of straight potato starch, I used a spoonful of ener-G egg replacer, which includes potato starch as it's main ingredient. The batter was fairly thin and velvety smooth - more like a crepe than a pancake. Parekh uses red bell peppers and leeks, but I subbed enoki mushrooms, lots of chives, and a few red chili peppers with the seeds removed. Instead of mixing the vegetables into the batter mix, they are placed on top of the pancake in the pan, and lightly pressed into the batter before flipping. These pancakes would be great with any number of thinly chopped or shredded veggies, and are nicely complemented by a dipping sauce with tamari, sesame oil, sugar, seasoned rice vinegar, and sake. I have yet to be dissapointed by a recipe from this book - tasty food, interesting ingredients, and lots of attractive recipes.