Black Bean Pancakes with Corn Salsa and Roasted Red Pepper Sauce
2 cans prepared black beans
1/4 cup plain bread crumbs
1 red onion, chopped
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
2 jalepeno peppers, seeded and chopped
4 cloves of garlic, minced
4 red bell peppers
1 cup roasted corn
3 tablespoon chopped cilantro
1/3 cup chopped red onion
1/4 lime juice
Roast fresh red peppers under broiler until skin is blackened. Seal peppers in an air tight bowl, or plastic bag for 20 minutes and then peel off skin. Drain both cans of black beans and then mash them using fork or blender. Chop cilantro, onion, jalepeno pepper and mix into black beans. Add vegan breadcrumbs and mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Lightly oil a saute pan and drop large spoonfuls of batter when pan is smoking hot. Flatten batter with spatula. Cook pancakes two minutes on each side.
For Corn Salsa: To roast corn, drain well if frozen, place in dry, hot saute pan and saute until browned. Combine one chopped jalepeno, 3 T. cilantro, 1/3 c. onion, and roasted fresh or frozen corn with lime juice. Chill.
For Red pepper Sauce: Puree peeled and seeded red peppers, add salt and pepper to taste. Keep warm in a sauce pan until needed. If sauce is too thick, thin with soy milk if desired.
Assemble by spooning about 1/4 cup of red pepper sauce on plate. Top with 3-4 pancakes. Garnish with the roasted corn salsa.
SO HOW'D IT GO?
I've had my eye on these for a little while and decided to make them tonight.
They were really good and the finished dish looked so pretty!
I decided not to tinker with the recipe & so followed it exactly (for once!).
The black bean pancakes were very tasty, but like other reviewers, mine did crumble quite badly. The corn salsa was great - the tartness of the lime worked really well with the cilantro & sweetness of the corn. The red pepper sauce was really yummy - and so simple too!
The problem with this recipe (apart from crumbly pancakes) was that it really took much much longer to make than the recipe implied - more like 1hr and 20mins (not just 20mins as stated). I also found I did not need as many red peppers as the recipe called for - probably two thirds of the amount would have sufficed.
Also the layout of the recipe was probably not the best. If you do decide to make this it would be worth writing it down in a different order, just to make it easier to follow.
You need to make the corn salsa first (maybe even the day before) to allow time to chill. Then once that's done do the red pepper bit, and then make the pancakes. (so almost the reverse of how the recipe was laid out!)
Having said that the final result was tasty and I think I'll try it again. Next time though I think I'll try adding some fluid to the pancakes to see if that prevents them from crumbling.
I think this would be a great recipe for when guests are visiting - it looks so good and tastes good too!