whine & dine

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Yesterday, 8th March, was Shrove Tuesday, or – more commonly known in our all-inclusive society today – Pancake Day. Pancake Day isn’t that commonly celebrated outside the western world, but for those of you in Asia who may have heard about it but don’t know where it comes from, Shrove Tuesday is the day before Lent, where Christians and Catholics historically practice abstinence in the period leading up to Easter. Since rich foods like eggs, fat, sugar, and dairy (or food containing them) are some common items that practicing households might give up, pancakes were an easy way to use up these perishable items before the abstinence began.

About a week ago, I had a gluten-free cook-date with a friend of mine who’s mildly gluten intolerant. One of the recipes I tried out was this one for Gluten Free Buckwheat Pancakes from Wrightfood. These buckwheat pancakes are so freaking delicious, I’ve pretty much abandoned all hope of ever making any other pancake in my (very much gluten-loving) household. As much as I love pancakes, and as fluffy and lovely as the pancakes I get from my usual go-to recipe are, they tend to run a little plain, and pancakes are just a slightly more texturally interesting version of toast in my Sunday brunches. These, on the other hand, have a lovely nutty and slightly savoury flavour. They go equally well with a lightly spiced chutney, good marmalade, or the classic butter-and-maple syrup topping. In fact, they’re even good enough to eat on their own!

Most pancake recipes I’ve found online don’t generally bother separating the eggs whilst whipping up the batter, but ever since I started doing that, and was delighted with the fluffy, pillowy texture, I’ve never gone back. If you’ve got a handheld mixer, or a stand mixer, these will take no time at all to put together. It’s a bit of a fuss if you need to do it by hand, but I like to think of it as burning off the calories you’re about to consume. As Matt notes in his blog post, it’s also a fairly healthy recipe – whole grains, maple syrup instead of sugar, but I’ve tweaked the recipe slightly and converted the measurements into weight instead of volume.

For this year’s Fat Tuesday, I decided to go the savoury route and have breakfast for dinner. :) Inspired by the Sausage McMuffins, I bought a few sausage patties from Citysuper, fried up some eggs, and sandwiched them together to make a rather scrumptious meal. I’d strongly recommend anyone who likes pancakes to give this recipe a shot – I know it’s a little annoying to have to go out and buy a bag of buckwheat flour *just* to use about a cup of it, but once you taste how awesome these pancakes are, I promise that bag will disappear in a flash.

Browned Butter Buckwheat Pancakes
(adapted from Wrightfood)

150g buckwheat flour
1 tsp baking powder
a pinch of salt
50g butter
300g milk
50g maple syrup (or honey)
2 large eggs, separated

clarified butter for frying

to serve: sausage patties, fried egg, tomato chutney, and maple syrup (optional, but not really!)

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium mixing bowl.

In a small pan, melt the butter over medium heat. Continue to heat until the solids start to brown, and the butter smells nutty. Immediately pour the butter off into a measuring jug (that will fit your liquid ingredients) to ensure it doesn’t burn.

In the measuring jug, combine the milk, maple syrup and egg yolks with the browned butter. Whisk to combine. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients, and gently mix together. It’s okay if your batter is a little bit lumpy.

Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites to stiff peaks. Whisk about 1/5 of the egg whites into the batter to lighten the mixture slightly, then gently – but quickly – fold the rest of your whites in using a large metal spoon. You should take care to not deflate the egg whites too much, but I’ve found that faffing about with the batter for too long also results in lots of the air being lost.

Once the batter is ready, get frying – heat a non-stick frying pan over medium heat, and lightly brush the surface with clarified butter. (I prefer using clarified butter – over regular butter – when frying, since this way the solids don’t burn, but you still get that buttery taste and aroma in whatever you’re cooking.) Pour in about 1/4 cup of the batter at a time, cook until holes form on the top (uncooked bit) of the pancake, and it’s mostly solid, about 2 minutes. Flip it over with an offset spatula or your pancake-flipper of choice to finish cooking, about 30 seconds. Transfer to a warmed plate, and keep warm in a low oven while you cook the rest of the batter.

To assemble a Sausage McPancake (TM), lay one pancake out on your work surface. Spread a good dollop of chutney, layer over as many sausage patties as you’d like, and a runny fried egg. Top with another pancake, then drizzle over a little maple syrup, and tuck in.

Yield: Makes about 10 pancakes – i.e. enough for 3 Sausage McPancakes plus an extra dessert pancake each :)