Coconut Milk Banana Pancakes with Maple Syrup & Bacon

I don't make pancakes often.  I didn't have milk so I decided to use coconut milk – and it worked out just fine.

Ingredients:

½ cup flour

1 tblsp sugar

2 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

1 egg (at room temperature)

½ cup coconut milk (shake the can first)

1 tblsp olive oil

Splash of vanilla

1 mashed banana (an overripe one from the freezer)

¼ cup of cooked rice

Maple syrup

Bacon

Method:

Have a bowl for the dry ingredients – mix together

Have a jug for the wet ingredients (minus the banana and rice) – and whisk together

Add the wet to the dry slowly at first.  Add the mashed banana and rice.  Let the batter sit for 10 minutes.

Cook in a hot pan, turning over when bubbles appear on top.  My first one was a mess but the others turned out ok.

Serve with cooked bacon and maple syrup – the real stuff!

Savoury Pancakes – Just as Good as the Sweet??

I put the kernels off a leftover cooked corn on the cob into a bowl.  Then some chopped red onion, a little chopped tomato and ½ a green chilli (finely diced).

For spices I put in a little chilli powder, grated ginger, salt and cumin seeds.

Then I added 1 cup of plain flour plus a teensy bit of baking soda (say 1/8^th of a teaspoon).

I mixed this all up and then gradually added 1 cup of ice cold water – don't add it all at once and stop when the mixture is milkshake consistency and there are no lumps.

Rest the pancake mixture in the fridge for 10 minutes or so.

Heat some oil until hot, then spoon in the mixture in batches – the first 2 lots I did were too large and as a result I couldn't turn them over without breaking them.  I did get one ok – and that is the one in the pic, of course!

They were tasty – spicy without being overwhelmingly so – particularly the crispy edges.

Potato Pancakes or are they Blinis?

I've called this dish potato pancakes but they are more of a cross between pancakes and blinis. 

They make a tasty big or little platform for putting things on like sour cream, chilli, salmon caviar etc. 

First you need to bake your potatoes on a bed of rock or other coarse salt.  This dries out the potatoes and helps them combine better with the other ingredients.  I used roasting potatoes (Agria).

You bake your potatoes whole and unpeeled for an hour and a half in a moderately hot oven.  When done let them cool so you can handle them without burning yourself.

You scoop out the flesh into a mixing bowl and mash the potato (it would be even better if you had a ricer but I don't)

Beat into the mixture 2 whole eggs and 2 egg yolks using a wooden spoon. Stir in ¼ cup of normal flour and then ¼ cup of hot cream (or milk) followed by another ¼ cup of flour. 

Season with heaps of salt and ground white pepper.

Beat the 2 egg whites with a pinch of salt until they get to firm peaks stage.  Stir a spoonful into your batter first and then fold the rest of the egg whites in. 

I made this in advance so covered the mix and put it in the fridge for a few hours.

This makes quite a lot of potato pancakes but you can freeze the leftovers in air tight containers with wax paper between layers of the pancakes.

Pancakes My Way

I based these pancakes loosely on a Chelsea sugar recipe.  But as always fiddled with it a bit – in particular I added soda water as part of the liquid component thinking that would lighten them up – it didn't.  I'm sure you will have a much better recipe – a foolproof one would be appreciated.

Ingredients:

1 cup self raising flour

2 tablespoons sugar

Pinch of salt

150ml each of milk and 100ml soda water

2 eggs

30g butter

Method:

Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl

Mix the wet ingredients (including the eggs and melted butter)

Pour the wet into the dry and stir.  Don't worry if the batter looks a bit lumpy.

Let the mixture stand in the fridge for at least 20 minutes.

Then just drop a couple of tablespoons worth into a hot pan – this is the tricky bit – the first one never seems to turn out and the last ones are at risk for burning.

The results were ok served with just a sprinkle of sugar, some butter and lemon juice – but I have to admit they weren't as light as I would like.

Need Some Inspiration? Try Pancakes!

Cornmeal Ricotta Pancakes

Food on Friday: January has some great pancakes.  Here are some which I'd like to share with you today. 

The pic at the top was brought over by MJ's Kitchen – fantastic Cornmeal Ricotta Pancakes

Old Fashioned Pancakes by James & Everett

Banana Nut Pancakes by A Mama's Corner of the World – these are healthy and have no flour.

Finishing with something a bit different from Lisa's Kitchen – Baked Blue Grape Pancakes

For other dishes head over to this Pinboard.