If there is any world food, it must be meatballs and also then pancakes. Every country, every region and every housewife has their way of doing meatballs and pancakes. There must be thousands of types of pancakes. Pan Cake, so every flatbread in the world, even Ethiopian injera made with teff flour and acts as both plate and utensil, with all the fillings dotted on the big injera, is a pancake.
So pancake is a base that can be used for savory dishes and of course sweet.
It is also one of those dishes that can be spectacular and a marvelous and sweet and a soft delicious thing. Think of classical Crepe Suzette, served flaming with Grand Marnier and often served with some orange sauce and cream cheese, or icecream.
French crepes are my favorite pancakes. US pancakes are not pancakes, they are more flapjacks (the Brit terminology). But, I love all pancakes. These are good, simple and joyful.
We would make a bunch of these (without sugar) during sleepy farm evenings, layer them with saucy and tasty ground beef, pour a cheese sauce over the top, and pop them in the oven to brown it all. Cool a bit, serve cut in slices and eat with a green salad. No, pancake certainly is not only for breakfast.
We would also mix up some cinnamon in the sugar, sprinkle some over as the pancakes came out of the pan and cover, for the heat to melt the cinnamon sugar. At the end of all of that, roll em up and eat with melted self-made sugar and cinnamon sauce. I thought the farmboys were visiting me, but they were really visiting the house where pancakes were being made.
Where I come from, they have pancake machines, that can produce something like 30 pancakes (square ones) in a short period of time and every cattle auction or church gathering could not be complete without pancakes.
Many types of flours can be used. But here is a very quick pancake for you that is very different and very tasty.
2 ripe bananas, overripe is good
2 tablespoons of peanut butter, not the sugared stuff
2 medium eggs or one large one
Mix together with a fork. Don’t mix to death and it is fine if bits of banana are still not smashed in fully. But the egg and the peanut butter should be mixed well.
A hot pan, with a little ghee or oil, (the pan needs to be hot, so, too hot for butter as it will burn), spoon them in about 8 cm rounds and fry one side, until you see bubbles on the top, turn around and cook the other side. Don’t cook to death.
Have with berries, fruit, soft cheese … as you like.
Buckwheat is a great flour for pancakes. How about Brie cheese, bacon and fresh grapes, buckwheat pancakes.
And then we have to touch eastern tastes … Scallion Pancakes
This is the one I want to try next. Moroccan Semolina Pancakes – https://www.lavenderandmacarons.com/moroccan-semolina-pancakes-vegan-baghrir/
And we have not even touched the world of pancakes. There are beautiful pancakes done with oat flour and a million more. My next career .. a pancake expert. Imagine what Smoothie will say about that lol. (Teeheee … she is only a pancake expert!)