With Shrove Tuesday bearing down on us, what better way to spend this week than on the 'batter' - pancake batter, that is! The tradition of making pancakes on Shrove Tuesday has its origin in the need to use up perishable food before the Lenten Fast began, and pancakes were very useful for this.
There is a wide range of dishes, both sweet and savoury, that can be made from a basic batter recipe. Most are very economical, varying from the popular Yorkshire pudding to the banana fritters; from the old-fashioned pancake to a lacy, liqueur-flavoured crepe fit for any feast, and ignited with a flourish by waiters in the dining rooms of the better restaurants in days gone by.
I well remember summer holidays spent in Pont l'Abbe, in Brittany, when I would make a beeline for the local creperie where a queue was always forming for the succulent crepes on offer. They used to be a simple, staple food of Breton farmers and fishermen, and were eaten in the same way as bread. The batter would be spread over a special griddle called a galettiere and, with deft movements of the special wooden spatula, flipped over and topped with beaten egg or whatever was your choice.
Pancakes are smaller, slightly heavier and thicker than crepes. One of their great advantages is their versatility as you can stuff them with whatever you want. However, as in most cooking affairs, there's more fun to be got out of understanding what you're doing rather than taking the line that any fool can toss up a pancake. This week we'll take a look at the whys and wherefores of batters.
Batter Making
Basic batter ingredients are flour, egg and a liquid, normally milk or milk and water. Oil or butter may also be included, depending on the thickness and richness required in the end product. The main method is as follows: sieve flour and seasonings together into a bowl and, if a sweet batter is required, add the sugar. Make a 'well' in the flour right to the bottom of the bowl. Break the eggs into the well, add a small quantity of liquid and stir into the eggs before any flour is incorporated. Mix with a small sauce whisk or wooden spatula; stir rapidly at first, mixing just the eggs and liquid together, and then gradually include the flour. As more and more flour is drawn in, add extra liquid. Keep stirring and adding liquid until the mixture has the consistency of thick cream; at this stage, and not before, the mixture can be thoroughly beaten with a whisk. If necessary, oil or butter can now be added. Allow the batter, and yourself, to rest for a couple of hours if possible. This enables the starch cells to swell so that they are more easily broken down when the batter is cooked. During this time the batter will thicken, and sometimes more liquid may be added to bring it to the right consistency. Batter for thick pancakes requires less liquid than that for thin, lacy pancakes. If you like a really fluffy pancake, you could add a stiffly beaten egg white after the resting period, just before you use the mixture This is useful when making really puffy Yorkshire puddings. Here is a simple pancake batter recipe.
Cooking Pancakes
Strong heat is essential when cooking batter as it breaks the starch cells down, releasing air bubbles within the mixture which then produce a light texture. A proper pancake pan is a useful piece of kitchen equipment. Made of cast-iron, it has straight edges about 1.75cm | .75inch high. Otherwise you can just use a heavy-based omelette pan. The pancake pan should never be washed; just clean it with an oiled cloth or kitchen paper. And remember: pancakes can be turned with a spatula if the knack of tossing proves difficult!
Heat the pan then wipe it with a thin film of oil. It's important to only barely grease the pan as the oil is merely to prevent sticking and not to 'fry' the pancakes in the ordinary sense. When the pan is thoroughly hot and greased, test the batter for consistency; it should be possible to make one full tablespoon spread evenly over the base of a l3.5cm | 5.5inch pan, so that the pancake is paper thin. Allow it to cook until golden brown on one side. Loosen the edge carefully with a palette knife, slip the knife under the pancake and turn. Tossing the pancake is more difficult to describe: loosen the edge all round, shake the pan and toss! Serve simply with castor sugar and lemon juice. Pancakes not required immediately can be piled one on top of another and covered with a cloth.
If you have pancakes left over, you can make them into savoury Pancake Chips. A good way of turning pancakes into your main meal rather than just eating them for dessert is by combining them with chicken or ham in the form of Crepes Nicoise or Spinach Pancakes with Mornay Sauce. If you feel like going for an elaborate pancake dessert try either Crepes Suzette or the rather unusual Crepes Napolitaine which is an excellent dish for special occasions.
The method of making batter for fritters is very much the same as for the basic pancake batter. The main difference is that the fritter batter needs to be thicker than the pancake batter as it is has to form a light, crisp covering for various foods that are going to be deep-fried. Add 50g | 2oz caster sugar for sweet fritters. Here's a recipe for Potato and Cheese Fritters.
The following fruits make delicious fritters - just serve with whipped cream -
Apples: peel, core cut into rings, coat with sugar, then flour and batter and deep-fry.
Bananas: peel, slice each into three slanting pieces, and treat as the apples.
Pineapple rings: give these rings the same treatment as the apples.
Tommy FitzHerbert
