Turmeric Gram Flour Crepes with Spiced Butter beans and Roast Yellow Courgette and Tomatoes

Last month I asked you to set me a challenge on Instagram to create a breakfast, lunch, and dinner dish only using one colour.

And for the lunch dish colour you picked; yellow!

So, I present to you my gram flour crêpes that have been lightly spiced with turmeric and served with spicy butter beans, roast yellow courgettes and tomatoes.

I was quite lucky because we are just about to enter the yellow courgette season and the same for the tomatoes.

Heirlooms, which include a variety of yellow, had just come into season, so being able to make the bulk of my vegetables from those two ingredients meant I was off to a great start.

Plus, they both work perfectly together. The courgette has this lovely soft texture, and the tomato adds a subtle sweetness that mellows out the spiced butter beans and the turmeric crêpes, too.

Wanting to keep this dish relatively simple to really let those ingredients shine, in all their yellow glory, I kept the spices to a minimum and played to the fresh vibrant colours and flavours of those sweetened tomatoes.

When roasted, they just burst out of their skins, letting all their beautiful juices soak into the soft and squidgy flatbreads underneath.

Normally I’d let my tomatoes blister a little in the oven, so you can add another layer of complexity and depth with the caramelised tones. But in the theme of sticking to a yellow colour palate, I had to keep them as close to their natural colour as possible.

I loved the overall dish so much that I’ve been eating it on repeat for the last few weeks, and will continue until they go out of season.

Yellow courgettes are at their best from June to September, but the early harvested ones have an even more delicate flavour, which is what I wanted for this dish.

It may look heavy, but it’s actually quite light. Yellow courgettes are very similar to the taste and texture of their green siblings, although I believe they are more on the sweet side. Which is perfect because I knew I wanted to add some spice to the crêpe and the butter beans.

I added a little apple cider vinegar to the crêpes to help make them fluffy and light. The acidity also helps combine the sweet and the spicy together with a touch of sour–making the holy trinity of flavours on the palate.

It makes you want to go in for more.

I also added some earthier tones into the butter beans through the addition of onion and garlic.

These two ingredients are the base of most of my butter bean dishes, and when combined, they create the building blocks for flavour that would be difficult to replicate without.

Don’t worry, if you cannot get hold of black mustard seeds, you can swap them out for the same quantity of yellow or brown mustard seeds or even Nigella seeds. Although, these have a little more of a bitter taste, so I would suggest adding around 3/4 in.

Alternatively, you can substitute 3/4 to 1 teaspoon of dry mustard powder for each teaspoon of mustard seeds.

If you make too much, you can keep the roasted vegetables and the butter beans stored in separate containers in the fridge for around 3 days.

If you have more crêpes than you need, stack and layer them between wax paper or cloth, and then secure in an airtight bag or container.

They can then keep in the fridge for around 3–4 days, or in the freezer for up to two months.

To reheat them, defrost them in the fridge and then either microwave for 10–15 seconds on a plate with a splash of water, or pop them back in a frying pan and heat on either side for 30 seconds.

If you just have the batter left over, you can keep it in an airtight container in the fridge for 2–3 days and then just use as normal. I’d suggest letting it come back up to room temperature before frying to ensure even cooking.

Check out my other coloured dishes, my all purple breakfast and my all white dinner. I had so much fun creating these dishes.

I’m so used to packing my recipes with all the different colours of the rainbow, so I really had to get creative when it came to finding and cooking ingredients of the same colour.

It’s definitely a challenge I’d love to take on again, and would love to know what you would create for lunch if you were only allowed to use yellow ingredients.

Enjoy, love Niki xx