Something Yummy: Potato Pancakes w/ Eggplant Béchamel

Our DVR is filled to the brim with episodes of Chopped.  If you aren't familiar with it, it is a cooking competition/elimination show on the Food Network where contestants are given baskets with totally random ingredients.  For example—make an appetizer using watermelon, canned sardines, pepper jack cheese, and zucchini in 20 minutes (Season 1 Episode 5).  After watching so many episodes, I stop and think "there is definitely something I can make here" every time I walk into the kitchen.

In my pantry I had: a tupperware of leftover potato dumpling dough, 3 carrots, 1 eggplant, and milk.  I wanted to have a mixture of flavors, textures, and colors.  I first planned on making a spicy potato pancake for the base of the dish.

The pancakes were made up of shredded potato, onion, salt, red pepper flakes and black pepper and were held together with some egg and flour.  I wanted to get them just cooked through with a nice crisp on both sides.


Then I decided on some type of light cream sauce.  Looking at the eggplant, I thought of moussaka with a nice creamy béchamel sauce.  I figured why not combine the two?


I heated a little oil, whisked in some flour, slowly added milk to the desired consistently, and added salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

I grilled the eggplant with just a little salt.  When the eggplant softened it was added to the food processor along with the béchamel sauce (I also added a spoonful of tahini to bring out some of the earthiness of the eggplant).


Next, I wanted to add a little crunch to the meal with the carrots.  I cooked them just briefly in some butter, garlic salt, and dill.  Potatoes, carrots, and a creamy sauce?  I'll eat it.

Carrots, potato pancakes cooking, sauce, and pancake mixture to be fried

I stacked the potato pancakes, sauce, carrots and repeated.  I really think the Chopped judges would have enjoyed it—except maybe Geoffrey Zakarian, who really dislikes spiciness!