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Yotam Ottolenghi’s chickpea pancakes with spiced aubergine and courgette: ‘Eat fresh out of the pan, when they are at their height of lightness and fluffiness.’ Photograph: Johanna Parkin for the Guardian. Food styling: Henrietta Clancy

Andersen’s fairytale The Princess And The Pea(I will assume, for the sake of my argument, that he meant a chickpea) and Rumi’s poem The Chickpeause the little pea to address unexpectedly weighty matters. How could something so tiny create so much turmoil and disturb the princess’s sensibility so much? Why is suffering necessary before Rumi’s chickpea can be transformed into something great? Or, as the chickpea, leaping out of the flame, asks the cook, “Why do you set fire to me? You chose me, bought me, brought me home – for this?”

Leaving such lofty discussions about the human condition to the poets, the chickpea is something I feel passionate about as a cook, whatever stage it is at in its life – whole, crushed, blitzed or ground; soaked, cooked, dried or tinned. I rely on chickpeas in their whole form a great deal, but it’s when the are dried and ground to make chickpea flour (also known as Bengal gram, gram flour and besan flour) that they make some of my favourite comfort food. Iranian gondi dumplings served in an aromatic broth;light and fluffy “pudlas”, or pancakes; thin batter for pakora-style prawn or vegetable fritters; Italian flatbreads; and cardamom- and rosewater-scented biscuits studded with pistachios: the principal ingredient in all of these is the pale yellow and slightly nutty-tasting gram flour.

Gram flour also spreads its comforting embrace through soups and warm yoghurt sauces, where it helps to thicken and prevent curdling; and in innumerable Indian sweet and savoury treats, from sev (a crisp, vermicelli-like street snack) to besan barfee (a sweet gram flour fudge studded with pistachios and almonds).

And where does Madhur Jaffrey fit into all this? Well, it’s her paean to gram flour in Eastern Vegetarian Cookingthat got me started on this line of thought in the first place. She writes that just “one bowl of rice topped with some karhis [an Indian soup-like dish made with yogurt or buttermilk thickened with gram flour], and I begin to purr”. The pulse rate gets raised by the pulse. Now that’s poetry.

The next two recipes – the pancakes and spiced aubergine – are intended to be served together, but if you choose just to make the pancakes, serve them with some yoghurt and your favourite savoury chilli sauce. Gram flour absorbs a lot of moisture, so these are to be eaten fresh out of the pan, when they are at their height of lightness and fluffiness. Makes 12 pancakes, to serve four.

100g gram flour
½ sachet fast action yeast (4g)
½ tsp caster sugar
Salt

1 small (or ½ large) egg, beaten
½ tsp baking powder
Vegetable oil, for frying
Put the flour, yeast and sugar in a large bowl with a quarter-teaspoon of salt. Add the egg and 100ml water, and whisk until smooth. Cover with clingfilm and set aside for an hour, until doubled in size. Add the baking powder, mix well and set aside for 10 minutes longer.

Put a heavy-bottomed skillet pan on a medium heat and add a tablespoon of oil. Once hot, put three or four heaped dessertspoons of the batter into the pan, and cook for four minutes in total, turning once halfway through, until the pancakes have risen to about 1.5cm in height and are light, fluffy and golden-brown. Transfer to a wire rack and set aside while you cook the remaining batter mixture, adding more oil with each batch. Serve at once, with the following spiced aubergine alongside.

This is the perfect thing to scoop up with your chickpea pancakes, but it also works brilliantly as a condiment with all sorts of other dishes: plain steamed rice, grilled meat or fish, spread on toasted sourdough – you really can’t go wrong. Serves four.

2 medium aubergines, trimmed and cut into 2cm dice

2 medium courgettes, trimmed and cut into 2cm dice
Salt
140ml vegetable oil
2 medium onions, peeled and cut into 1cm slices
½ tsp ground turmeric
¼ tsp ground cloves
½ tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp black mustard seeds
1 tsp cider vinegar
10g coriander leaves, roughly chopped
5g mint leaves, roughly chopped
80g Greek yoghurt, to serve

Put the aubergine and courgette in a large colander with a teaspoon of salt, mix well to coat the veg and leave over a sink or bowl for an hour, to drain. Pat dry with a clean tea towel and set aside.

Pour the oil into a large saute pan and place on a medium-high heat. Once hot, add the onions and fry for five minutes, stirring often, until beginning to turn golden-brown, then use a slotted spoon to transfer to a large bowl.

Add the vegetables to the hot pan (depending on the size of your pan, you may need to fry them in batches), and stir in the turmeric, cloves, cinnamon, mustard seeds and half a teaspoon of salt. Fry for 15 minutes, stirring frequently, until the aubergine and courgette have taken on a lot of colour, then transfer to the onion bowl. Stir through the vinegar and herbs, and serve warm or at room temperature, with a spoonful of yoghurt alongside.

These moreish Italian flatbreads are quite large, so each can serve two. Cut them up to serve on separate plates, or pile up the two farinata on one plate for people to pull at and spoon the salsa on top as they go. Or serve pre-dinner with drinks and without the salsa. For four.

200g gram flour (aka chickpea flour)
60ml olive oil
Salt

For the salsa
3 medium celery sticks, very finely sliced
15g parsley, roughly chopped
3 tbsp caper berries, stalks removed (or use normal capers if need be)
½ large preserved lemon, flesh discarded and skin finely chopped
2 medium tomatoes, cut into 1cm dice
2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp lemon juice

Put the gram flour in a large bowl and, whisking constantly, slowly add 450ml water until well combined. Set the batter aside for 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, put all the salsa ingredients in a bowl, stir, add a pinch of salt if it needs it and set aside.

Heat the oven to 220C/425F/gas mark 7. Whisk two tablespoons of the olive oil into the batter, then stir in a teaspoon of salt. Put a heavy-based, oven-proof, 25cm skillet pan on a high heat with a tablespoon of oil. Once the oil starts to smoke, pour in half the batter: it should be about 4mm thick. Leave on the heat for 30 seconds, until it starts to bubble, and then transfer the pan to the oven for 10 minutes, until the farinata is cooked through. It should be browned and crisp on both sides, but soft in the middle. Remove from the oven and, using a spatula, transfer the farinata to a plate. Keep warm while you cook the second farinata with the remaining oil and batter. Serve at once, with the salsa spooned alongside or on top.

• Yotam Ottolenghi is chef/patron of Ottolenghiand Nopiin London.

Follow Yotam on Twitter.

Marsala Poached Pears Recipe

Yield: Makes 4 servings.

Firm, just ripe pears should be used. If overly ripe, the pears will cook up mushy. If Bosc pears are not available, Bartlett or Anjou can be substituted. You can core the pears if you wish, from the bottom, but it really is not necessary.

Ingredients 4 bosc pears, peeled, stem still attached, 1/4-inch of bottom sliced off so pears can easily sit upright 1 cup dry Marsala wine(or Madeira) 1 1/2 Tbsp lemon juice 1/3 cup white sugar 1/2 star anise 4 cloves 1/2 stick cinnamon

Method

1 In a saucepan just large enough to fit all of the pears, place the Marsala wine, sugar, lemon juice, star anise, cloves, and cinnamon. Bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat to medium and place the pears in the pan, standing upright. Cover the pan and cook for 10 to 15 minutes (if you want, baste with the liquid a couple of times during the cooking), until the pears can easily be pierced with a fork. Very firm pears make need to cook for up to 20 minutes.

2 Remove the pears to a serving dish. Keeping the pan uncovered, let the Marsala syrup boil down for a few minutes until it is a thick syrup. (If it begins to caramelize, remove pan from the heat and add a little water to the pan to stop the cooking.) Pour syrup over pears and serve.

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Links:
Poached pears in balsamic reduction
Poached pears in vanillafrom Lydia of The Perfect Pantry
Try poaching pears with Italian Lambrusco, a favorite of our local Sacramento chef Biba.

iOS7 came with the new Activation Lock feature as an extra layer of protection that will pretty much prevent turning off Find my phone, resetting, erasing or reactivating the device meaning preventing theft, however if not set properly, you could lock your own device!

One of the new security features of iOS7 is the antitheft Activation Lock which basically makes it difficult for anyone else to use or sell your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch if you ever lose it. Of course this could prevent or lessen theft rats as there would be no use of the stolen device if he can’t reformat it. The police have been encouraging people to upgrade their iPhones because of it.

If you have Find My Phone turned on, you must have the password associated with its Apple ID in order to turn off Find my Phone, erase or reactivate the device. This is great in theory, but in practice the strategy relies on some advance planning by device owners to prevent a disaster.

The feature is automatically activated once you upgrade to iOS7 and turn on your Find My Phone, so don’t spend hours searching for its button. In order to setup Activation Lock you have to upgrade to iOS 7 on your iPhone or iPad and then go into Settings > iCloud and then make sure Find My Phone is turned on.

The feature looks so good so far, but it is going to be your worst nightmare if you forgot or lost your Apple ID. In a nutshell if you forget your password and cannot reset it, you will lose access to your Apple ID and may be unable to use or reactivate your device. So, you should write down your password and keep it somewhere safe where you can get it anytime.