Pancakes have to be the easiest way to make an ordinary weekend morning feel special. I've been making them for years, having been a founding member of the now world-famous* crêpe club at the tender age of 13.
* The phrase 'world famous' is used loosely here - the other founding members (my school BFFs) now live in Dubai and Columbia, where they are most certainly making good pancakes and boring new friends with tales of old ones.
A heady mix of caffeine and hysteria fuelled our sessions which happened at least once a week, when we would fall off our chairs laughing and play Boggle as though it were a National sport. These times have left me with a life-long attachment to pancakes and a fail safe way of making them without any measuring instruments too. As you know, that's my kind of cooking.
For the pancakes:
Some flour
Some eggs
Some milk
Some butter
...ok, don't panic all will become clear. The trick to making perfect pancakes is to allow your mixture to flex according to how fresh your eggs are (therefore how much flour they'll take). I use roughly one egg per person. Crack these into a large mixing bowl and whisk by hand. Gradually pour flour into your eggs, whisking as you go until you have a consistent, thick paste. This is how to ensure you end up with a lump free mixture and the right amount of egginess to hold your pancake shape when you toss it. Once your paste is lump free, start adding the milk gradually, ensuring that each splash is properly taken by the paste before adding the next. If you're making american pancakes, stop adding the milk sooner than if you're making crêpes. A proper crêpe mixture should be pretty liquid.
Once you've finished mixing, heat some butter in a shallow frying pan. I mix butter with sunflower oil to keep it healthy. You have to wait until your pan is pretty hot to pour your first ladle of mixture in - the first one is always the hardest to get right. Once your mixture has cooked through and comes away easily from the pan, you can toss or flip it depending on how adventurous you're feeling.
Voila!
More recently, I've been enjoying fruit salad and creme fraiche, as I did last weekend. This is no ordinary fruit salad, it is in fact one of my mother's finest inventions, which I think she came up with as an adaptation of an Ottolenghi - you can't say I don't give you accurate foodie provenance.
For the fruit salad:
A mixture of your favourite fruit. We chose grapefruit, banana, kiwi, strawberries and baby green grapes.
The salad dressing is the interesting bit:
1 tsp honey
1/2 lemon juice
Glug of white wine (reisling is the best)
Crushed pistachios
2 drops of rose essence
Cut your fruit into salad chunks and mix. Then make your dressing by whisking up the ingredients in a small cup. Pour over the salad and serve.
Magnifique.
To serve, add a little sugar and your creme fraiche, fold in half and mange...
Mmmm. Perfect for brunch, or as a desert.
