Tag: pancake

Chestnut flour pancake 2-ways

Funnily Japanese are very found of chestnuts 栗 kuri, and the fall comes with all sort of chestnut preparations savory and sweet. The most famous is probably 栗ご飯 kurigohan (rice with chestnut) or 栗の渋皮煮 kuri no shibukawa ni (boiled chestnut in syrup). The use of chestnut flour though is more restricted, and often limited to some mochi preparations. So finding chestnut flour in Japan is not an easy task… luckily my parents once in a while send me a package from France, and chestnut flour, and green lentils are often on my order list!!! To be honest, I’ve never seen chestnut flour in any of our trips to the mountains in Japan, or in regions where they might produce some, though I always stop at local shops and markets or farmers cooperatives.

So this recipe may not be the most local one, but for me it is something that I really love in autumn. It is naturally very sweet, yet flavorful. It reminds me of Cevennes, Corsica or Tuscany. It is rustic yet refined because so rare now.

Chestnut pancakes

  • 100g of chestnut flour
  • 50g of wheat flour
  • 1tsp of baking powder
  • 1 egg
  • water

Simple as it is to make pancakes… simply mix all the ingredients to obtain a silky but thick dough by adding water little by little. Cook in a non-sticky fry pan. I use a small-medium one and made one at a time for the savory ones, and made two at once for the sweet ones.

For the savory ones, I cooked in a pan with a bit of olive oil: mushrooms (nameko for their beautiful color!), kabocha and komatsuna. Add cheese from Takahide farm for me and sausages from Isumi for A..

For the sweet ones I topped with dark chocolate, melted in the last minute of cooking, a sprinkle of brown sugar and a splash of olive oil.

Cheese version for she
Sausages version for he

Pancakes best-of

10 years ago I was baking pancakes twice a year or so… I would often use pancake mix and was never fully happy by the taste and usually had to eat them completely soaked with maple syrup. That was until we travelled to Boston in 2009 and I found a great organic pancake mix at a fancy grocery store. I remember coming back to Tokyo, and waking up very early with the jetlag, the sun was already shining and I decided to take the time to treat us with pancakes made with this newly brought pancake mix before going to work. And it was a revelation, pancakes can actually be really delicious, and they don’t need to be soaked in maple syrup!!! Of course I could never find the pancake mix again, but I didn’t care. What was in the mix taught me that it was really easy to make pancakes from the scratch: any kind flour, baking powder, a bit of sugar or salt, milk (of any kind, or water) and an egg or not (actually now I prefer without, I found the pancakes more fluffy). Since then I have declined all possible ideas: changing the flour: plain, whole, soya, buckwheat, spelt… the milk: cow, almond, soya, coconut, water (when I have nothing in the fridge!), adding muesli, oatmeal, coconut, almond powder, spices, fresh fruits, grated lemon (picture)… making them for breakfast or dinner.., and they are always delicious, different and reslly easy to make. So I roughly cook pancakes once or teice a week when there is nothing else. But here is my ultimate top 3 for the moment:

1. Coconut pancakes: plain flour-coconut milk-grated coconut for a tropical breakfast, perfect with passion fruit jam;

2. Chai pancakes: plain or whole flour-cardamom-cinnamon-ginger for a cold winter morning, great with honey;

3. Muesli pancakes: whatever pancake base with muesli (nuts, cereals and dried fruits) added, anytime an extra energy is needed, I love these ones with butter.

But I must say that the lemon pancakes I cooked recently were amazing and could be in the top 3 together with muesli . Unfortunately I find it hard to get organic or non-chemical/wax lemons so it is not a recipe I can often prepare. Though last weekend I bought about 20lemons at a local organic market in Isumi, so I will use more lemon in the next weeks (after I’m back from Italy and France).

Lemon pancakes 

– 150g of flour

– 1tsp of baking powder, a pinch of salt

– 1tbs of brown sugar

– the zest of 1 lemon

– 200ml of soya milk

– a bit of water

– a bit of vanilla  

Mix all the ingredients to obtain a creamy dough not too liquid. 

Heat a large fry pan (anti-adhesive) pour 3 or 4 rounds of dough (depending on the size of the frypan and of the pancakes) cook at medium Heat until the top is almost dry, flip and cook on the other side. Repeat with the rest of the dough. Serve with honey or yuzu jam!

 

 

 

Double almond pancakes

The last weekend we spend in the country before traveling for a few weeks in Europe: Italy and France, and it is perfectly cold and sunny, just how like the mornings it this season. To warm us up before going outside play tennis and garden, a rich breakfast is now needed and this morning I chose to make rich pancakes, but not muesli pancakes, since A. is not a big fan of muesli. But almond in cakes he likes very much. The recipe is really simple, they are fluffy, warm and nourishing.  The recipe is vegan, but you can add eggs if you want them even richer. So here is my recipe with proportions that are about, adjust slighty if needed! Enjoy the weekend!

Double almond pancakes  

– 200g of flour

– 1 glass of almond milk

– 80g of almond powder

– 1tsp of baking powder, and a pinch of salt

– 2tbs of sugar (optional) 

– 1/2 vanilla bean

In a large bowl, add the flour, the baking powder, the salt the sugar. Stir and add the almond milk. Then the almond powder and the vanilla. The dough must be creamy thick. If it is too hard add a bit of almond milk or water, if it is too wet add a little bit more almond powder or flour.

Heat a anti-adhesive fry pan, don’t grease it. Cook the pancakes on both sides for a few minutes. Eat warm!

Muesli pancakes

Since A. is away, I was thinking of having muesli and fruits for breakfast, so I stopped by the supermarket last night to buy some nuts muesli and some soya milk. But then this morning I was up at 6:15 and decided that after a bit of workout I would rather eat pancakes. So basically I prepared my muesli in a large bowl, covered it with soya milk, added a mix powder of black sesame, almond and kinako (grilled soya beans), add 2tbs of flour, a bit of baking powder and stirred well. Then cooked on both sides in a frypan. Finished with my uncle’s honey, added a kiwi sliced and I got a delicious breakfast, or rather two! Because I prepared a bit too much… I so much used to cook for two people… it’s hard to be alone!

Pancakes and plums

When in Canada our friend C. Gave us a huge jar of peach jam he made. The jam was so delicious that just one month after it is already empty. And of course I totally forgot about it, hoping this delicious jam would be on the breakfast table for ever!!! This morning when I woke up and was thinking about making pancakes for breakfast, I realized there was no more jam… Pancakes without nothing to top them (A. doesn’t like butter nor honey) would be very sad… Luckily I had plenty of fruits and decided to add them to the pancakes directly to create some moisture add recreate a kind of jam effect. I prepared a regular pancake base. Heated a pan and greased with coconut oil, then started to cook the pancakes on one side. For the fruit I opted for juicy plums that I chopped and added to the pancakes while just starting to cook in the pan. The fruits cooked once I flipped the pancakes and the result was quite interesting: pancake taste and texture and clafouti like fruits juicy, sweet and sour. I added a nashi pear for a crunchy-sweet-super juicy refreshing morning plate. Delicious! Have a good day!!!

Nordic inspiration

This winter I talked a little about the cooking books I got for Christmas and I tried several recipes from them. I also use them as source of inspiration. Recently I was attracted by the Nordic cookbook and in particular by salmon recipes. I wanted to prepared cured salmon. So finally I bought a nice salmon filet and was about to prepare it when A. told me that he rather have it right away than wait for 48h for the cured fish… Well.. I left the cured fish for an other time and opted for a butter grilled one. And just blanched the beautiful baby colorful Swiss chard I found at the farmers market and baked some 100% buckwheat pancakes. Added some pickled cucumbers and served all together. Simply delicious. For a Nordic experience I guess that cream and dill would have been on the plate too, but I didn’t have any!

Coconut pancakes

Yes, I was worried sick about Pablo, then about her kittens, now about how will we handle the situation, and slept bad and no appetite but A. was still hungry (even the very one time he had high fever he was hungry!!!).

So I had to cook anyway, and when I made the oat bran cinnamon pancakes, the recipe that inspired me was actually oat bran, coconut, cinnamon pancakes. Except that I didn’t like the idea of mixing cinnamon that is more a warm taste to me (perfect when chilly outside), and coconut that is more a fresh taste that I enjoy better when it’s warm. So I slpit the recipe in two, and made coconut pancakes that are perfect eaten with nothing more and when lottle appetite. In the pancake base, made with whole wheat flour, I added the same amount of gratted coconut. Then cook until golden, as usual. 

Oat bran pancakes

Since we’re spending the golden week in Ohara I’m cooking/baking every day for breakfast and with the weather being very unstable, this morning I wanted something new, something different in texture and taste. I was having some oat bran and thought it could be a good base to start with. So I browsed a bit for inspiration and found two things, first an idea for a recipe, second a nice website/app that I didn’t know about: yummly.com and seems very well designed to find recipes and inspiration. I’ve also started posted recipes there so I will probably keep you updated anout that soon.

As for our breakfast I prepared some oat bran cinnamon pancakes with using mainly oat bran to which I added a little of flour, baking powder, salt, brown caster sugar, one egg, soy milk and plenty of cinnamon powder. Stirred well and cook in a hot pan until golden. Perfect straight or with butter, honey, marmalade…

Cod & spinach version 2

When I find a seasonal combination I like, it is not rare that I test it in several bariations and versions. Right now there is some nice cod and plenty of Japanese spinaches, and I particularly like the two together, so after the wet risotto I tried a butter grilled cod with spinach and oat bran pancakes and some blanched spinaches. Super delicious! For the cod just a little of butter in a hot pan grilled both sides until crispy. For the blanched spinaches in a little of boiling salted water, I soak the cut spinaches no longer than 5min, then drain well. For the pancakes I used spelt flour, oat bran in the quantity you like, add baking powder, salt, chopped spinaches, 1 or 2 eggs, soy milk, stir well, then cook in a pan at low heat. Serve all while still jot and eat immediately!

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