Healthy Zucchini Soya Cakes

Healthy & Tasty Zucchini and Soya cakes

Summer is here and so are the garden fresh veggies and herbs sizzling around in everyone's backyard. Well I don't have a backyard!! but can always count on endless supplies of garden fresh beauties from our local farmer's market. I believe in buying the local produce, so that you can help reducing the growing fuel use. A little effort goes a long way to curb global warming. And to top it homemade breads, pies and ice creams are a bonus to get the taste of homemade goodies.

Last week I bought some Zucchini and thought of grilling them, but instead ended up making cakes with them. When Sia of Monsoon Spice announced about JFI-Soya started by Indira of Mahanandi. I thought of making some zucchini cakes with soya chunks and soya flour for this event. JB loves to have snacks in the evening after a tiring day at work., though only few times I surprise him with some Indian fritters, snacks and salads, sad huh!

This is a very simple recipes and you can play around the ingredients pretty smoothly. I adapted this recipe from FoodTv ~ Paula Dean show. I added soya flour instead of the traditional A-P Flour (maida). Play with your veggies and you will create a fabulous snack item. Grated carrots, squash (yellow & green), green onions etc can be added too. Eat it with your favorite sauce, yogurt dip, chutney or simply with ketchup!

Cuisine: American, International
Prep time: 10 mins
Bake time: 30 mins
Makes: 8-10 cakes
Serves: 2-3
Ingredients:
1 Zucchini, grated
½ C Soya chunks, dried ones
2 T Soya Flour
2 T bread crumbs, seasoned
1 T extra virgin olive oil
1 large egg, lightly beaten
1/4 t garam masala powder or any spice mix of your choice (optional)
1/4 t cayenne pepper/chilli powder
freshly grounded black pepper
salt to taste
Oil spray

Method:

• Grate the zucchini and drain the liquid by placing the shredded zucchini in a colander for 20 mins or place it in between two kitchen towels or papers and gently press. The extra liquid will be soaked up in the paper/towel.
• Pre heat oven to 350 F (177 C), arrange aluminum foil on a large baking sheet and oil spray it.
  
• Put the dried soya chunks in hot water, let it stand for 10 mins, squeeze the extra liquid out of it and shred them in a food processor. Shredded soya chunks it will look like ground kheema (goat/lamb meat).
  
• Place shredded zucchini in a large bowl, add shredded soya, soya flour, bread crumbs, extra virgin olive oil, salt and freshly ground black pepper. Mix well and add chili powder/cayenne pepper, garam masala or any spice mix of your choice or you can opt it out completely.
• Add lightly beaten egg and mix well shape the mixture into patty form. Place them on the baking sheet and spray once again over the patties.
• Bake them for 30 mins turning the sides once for even cooking on both sides.
• Serve hot with your favorite dip, chutney or sauce.

Variation:

• If you don't have oven no worries! you can shallow fry them with little oil in a large pan just like you'd fry some ragda patties :)
• You can add shredded carrots, cucumber, squash (yellow and green), green onions, shredded tofu/paneer (Indian cottage cheese) for variety of taste.