Pancakes Around the World...

...or at least pancakes in England and the US. Happy Shrove Tuesday/Pancake Day! In the UK, instead of Carnival or Mardi Gras and partying like there's no tomorrow, they make pancakes. Kind of mundane in comparison, but I can't say that to my boyfriend! He told me not to say things I can't take back, I said I won't plan to take it back.

A little back story, last year I was in England for Shrove Tuesday (my boyfriend gets mad if I just say Pancake Day) and I was told about this holiday. I had never heard of English pancakes before, and was confused when a family of people who sounded so excited for pancakes just got up and did their thing without making them! I asked my boyfriend what happened to making pancakes, and he realized that nobody told me that the English eat pancakes as a dessert or with savory filling for dinner (I learned the filling part this year)! His family then explained it to me and had a good laugh. I know better this year!

Anyway, in honor of Pancake Day, I made American pancakes in the morning to get in both of our cultures. I had chocolate chip and my boyfriend had plain. Of course we had real Vermont Maple syrup on top.

Tonight was English pancakes which are much thinner than the American version and are more like crepes. I've never had a crepe, but I'm told English pancakes are a bit thicker. It's traditional to serve them sprinkled with superfine sugar and lemon, rolled, and sprinkled once again with lemon and sugar. I am not a big fan of lemon flavor, so I just do a little drizzle of that once, not after rolling.

I actually did pretty well with making the pancakes. The batter was a bit lumpy so I had to strain it. I think it's because I followed the recipe's directions to whisk in the eggs, but maybe whisked a bit too much. I was also worried about flipping them because they are so thin, but I was actually able to flip them up in the air and get them in the skillet! I only messed up one and that was because it ended up folding when I flipped it. The first one was also a little messed up, because I hadn't gotten a hang of pouring the batter into the pan and rotating it so it's a thin layer.

The English pancakes were ok, but a little plain. I learned today that people put different things in them and don't just do the lemon and sugar. I'll have to try that sometime, see if it tastes better.


English Pancakes

220 grams all-purpose flour
1 pinch salt
4 eggs
400 ml milk mixed with 150ml water
100 grams butter

lemon wedges to taste
superfine sugar to taste

1. Sift flour into mixing bowl.
2. Make a well in the flour and crack eggs in the well. Slightly whisk in eggs.
   
3. Slowly add the milk and water mixture, whisking to get lumps out of flour. The batter should be runny, like cream.
4. Melt the butter in a skillet, put 4 tablespoons into the batter and pour out the rest into a bowl to save for buttering the pan between pancakes.
5. Heat the pan to medium heat.
   
6. Ladle some batter (about 1/4 cup) into the hot skillet, tipping the pan to coat the batter evenly around the pan. When the bottom has browned and the pancake is dry around the edges and bubbling, flip over.
   
7. Cook until browned. Place on plate, sprinkle with sugar and lemon, keep warm until serving.
8. Before serving, roll into longs and sprinkle with additional sugar and lemon.
   

An Easy Dish After a Crushing Blow

I admit, I'm devastated today by the Patriots loss yesterday. It would have been so much easier if it wasn't for the perfect season, or if it wasn't lost with 36 seconds left on the clock. I love my Pats, and always will. I have avoided the news all day. I tried watching BBC World News America this morning while getting ready for work, but even they had a segment about the game! This is one time I'm glad there is an election going on and it's saturating the news, it makes it easier to avoid being reminded of last night. I know it's only a sport, and I'm just a fan and not a player, but when you love a team so much, it's heartbreaking all the same. Note to news stations: hometown fans would have liked to see House, not continuing news coverage something so depressing. That would have been a sole point of comfort last night, since I couldn't sleep well and was in shock anyway.

But this is a food blog, not a sports blog, so I'll end my rant and get on with the food.

I did not feel like cooking tonight, so I was looking for something quick and easy to make for dinner. I had bought a couple of cans of Rotel the other day because I've heard good things and never tried it. I'm starting to get better at eating spicy foods since my boyfriend likes curry and I wanted to try it to see if it was good. I found a recipe for Rotel Goulash.

I liked it. I thought it was spicy, but drinking a soda with it took care of the burn. My boyfriend thought it was ok. He doesn't really like uncooked tomatoes, or tomatoes that haven't been cooked for a long time, so I think that if I were to make it again I would have to cook the tomatoes for a lot longer than the recipe calls for. He also didn't like the heat in it, strange since he loves curry and liked the Mexican Mashed Potatoes I made a while ago. We both feel that this is a different type of spicy than curry. Curry is spicy in a thick, creamy kind of way...this was spicy in a light way. I hope that makes sense, it's difficult to describe.

Rotel Goulash

1lb. ground beef
16 oz. of tomato sauce
20 oz. of Rotel
8 oz. of elbow macaroni
1/2 cup shredded extra-sharp cheddar cheese
salt and pepper

1. Bring a pot of water to a boil and cook macaroni until al dente.
   
2. While macaroni is cooking, brown the beef in the skillet. If there is a lot of juice, drain.
3. Add the tomato sauce, Rotel, macaroni, salt, and pepper. Simmer 15-20 minutes.
   
4. Shred cheese over macaroni and heat until melted.
   

Toad in the Hole

I heard that the UK is trying to get a National Yorkshire Pudding Day. Since my boyfriend moved over here this year and we both love Yorkshire Pudding so much, I thought it would be nice to be a little bit of history in the making. My beloved Patriots were playing in the Super Bowl and I knew I wouldn 't want to do a full roast dinner, so we decided that I would try to make some Toad in the Hole.

Despite the odd name, this is actually a simple and tasty dish that has sausages, not toads in it. I didn't have any meat drippings since I wasn't doing a roast, but I used some vegetable oil instead. Let me tell you, that vegetable oil gets smoky! We had guests over for the big game and we all had our eyes burning a bit. I think I put in a little too much oil though, so that could be part of it. I used plain breakfast sausages because my boyfriend feels those are the best for Toad in the Hole. Our friends and I loved this dish and they were amazed at how easy it seemed to be for me to make it and said they'd like to try it sometime.

The recipe is posted on Recipezaar. The only change I made was to refrigerate the batter for a little while. It's supposed to help the pudding rise, but I didn't notice much of a difference. It did help with the timing though.

Pizza, Pizza

So, my boyfriend said he doesn't want me to mess around with the pizza and mozzarella sticks recipes for our weekly pizza night. I decided to try a new one anyway.

I found a recipe that uses cornmeal in a thin layer on the bottom of the pan, and decided to try that. I noticed a few pizza places do that.

I didn't tell my boyfriend until after we had eaten that the crust was different. He liked it though.

The crust didn't crisp up as much as I would have liked and wasn't brown. The cheese was fully melted and would have been burnt if I left it in longer, maybe it needs a slightly higher temp. I didn't time the pizza, so maybe I didn't leave it in as long as I was supposed to. I have more of the crust left, so I'll try to time it next week to find out for sure.

I'm awful about remembering to take pictures of the pizza! I'll try to remember next week!

At Last...My Brioche Has Come Along!

A month later than hoped, I have finally made some brioche and it was well worth the wait.

During my first trip to England, I bought a sweet bread called brioche at ASDA. I loved it and had eaten the whole bag (8 small brioches) by the next morning. I bought some more to eat while there, and then bought some to bring home. Ever since then, I have bought bags of this heavenly treat on my visits and have longed for them here in the States. I cannot seem to find them where I live!

This summer I was delighted to find that the Joy of Cooking book I bought had a brioche recipe, so I made it as soon as possible. I was very disappointed. This recipe said it was a French recipe, but it was way too buttery and ended up tasting like a croissant, and even had the texture of a croissant. We ate them, but I didn't plan to use that recipe again.

Six months later and after buying five bags of brioche in England (which were made in France), I was determined to try again! I looked at the ingredient list and searched for recipes online with those ingredients, but had difficulty finding them. I finally asked around and was given an authentic French recipe to try.

Not to knock Joy of Cooking, because there are some recipes in there I have enjoyed, but this recipe I was given was so different from the one I had before I don't know why they said theirs was the French recipe, maybe there are regional differences. The recipe I was given is from a person in France and from a French cookbook, so it should definitely be French!

These brioche were delicious! I overcooked them a little, but they weren't too badly overdone. I made some plain butter ones, and some chocolate chip ones. My boyfriend, who says he doesn't like sweet things, but actually eats loads of it, said he liked both, but preferred the chocolate chip ones. This recipe was well worth looking in three different stores for superfine sugar!

Brioche (no amounts are given because I feel badly about posting other people's recipes without their permission)

Yeast Batter:
dried yeast
milk, hand-hot
superfine sugar
bread flour

other ingredients:
bread flour
salt
superfine sugar
butter
eggs


Yeast Batter method:

1. Stir yeast in to milk, let stand for 5 minutes.
2. Mix the flour and sugar and let stand in a warm place until frothy, about 20 minutes.

Meanwhile...

1. In a separate bowl, mix together rest of flour, salt and sugar.
   
2. Slice cold butter into thin pieces and rub into flour mixture.

To finish...

1. Beat eggs into the frothy mixture.
2. Stir in the flour mixture until it is a soft dough. Place on lightly floured surface and knead until smooth and no longer sticky.
3. Cover the dough and let it rise for about 1½ hours or until doubled in size.
4. Punch down the dough.
5. Grease tins and divide the dough into twelve equal pieces. (or place in a loaf pan) Pinch off a small piece of each of the twelve sections. Form the larger pieces into balls and place in tins. Make a small indentation and form the smaller pieces into balls and place on top. Glaze with a beaten egg.
6. Cover and leave the brioche to proof for about 30-40 minutes or until light and puffy.
7. Bake at 450°F until golden brown (15-20 minutes). Cool on a wire rack. (Bake for 45-50 minutes if using a loaf pan)

I Can't Believe It's Not Chicken!

A couple of months ago, I found a recipe on Recipezaar called "City Chicken, but It's Not Chicken!" We both loved it, but I didn't make it how the recipe said because I didn't have garlic salt, chicken broth, or onion soup mix. I used garlic powder, chicken bullion cubes, and onion powder as substitutes. I wanted to see if following the recipe to the letter (well, aside from the wooden skewers, I still didn't have those and it isn't a big deal to fish out the pieces of pork)would make it taste even better.

Let me just say, this recipe is heaven and I don't usually like pork! I first tried this recipe because my boyfriend likes pork and we had bought a huge pork tenderloin that he had cut up into smaller pieces. I'm becoming a big fan of using onion soup mix in my cooking. I'm really trying to use fresh ingredients whenever possible, but I found out this year that my family recipe for stuffing uses it (and this is one of the best stuffings I've ever had), and now this recipe uses it too.

I did veer off the recipe in the method: I put the flour, garlic salt, and pepper in a zip-lock bag so I could just shake it up. I used some tongs to take the pork out of the bag and place it in the skillet. I realize now that I should probably have saved some of that flour for the gravy instead of using plain flour from a bag. The gravy is by far the best part of that dish and there is loads to smother over the pork and mashed potatoes. We both ate until we couldn't eat another bite.

It is very important to just use plain mashed potatoes as a side dish for this recipe. The gravy has such a strong, fabulous flavor that any herbed mashed potatoes would be too much and take away from the delicious gravy.

We were both so excited to eat, that I forgot to take pictures, but there are pictures on the Recipezaar site.

Steamed Chocolate Pudding

I'm sorry, it's been a while since I've posted, but it's report card week, I've had to sort out some plans for my job next year, have had to do lesson plans for my grade level, and had loads of meetings. I'm pooped!

Wednesday was the mid-week slump. I was so exhausted that I had my boyfriend heat up some chicken soup with rice I made a while ago for himself and asked him to make some Velveeta shells and cheese for me. I crashed on the couch, and after getting in bed realized I hadn't tried something new! Well, Lee ran out to the kitchen to get some of the pudding cups we bought in England for me to try. Note to people who don't know: In the UK pudding is more of a general term for a dessert and is not what we Americans tend to think of as a pudding. To top it off, there are Yorkshire Puddings that are even more different and are served as a side dish to a roast dinner and are not sweet at all.

Let's just say I'm not a big fan of these cake/pudding cups and cans that they seem to have a fair amount of in England. I'm not sure if the cake is so dense because it's supposed to be and would be even if it wasn't processed, but it is just too dense and thick for my tastes. I like light and airy cakes.

The good thing about these puddings, was the chocolate sauce that was melted streamed down around the pudding. I did like that part. We accidentally threw away the pudding packaging, so I'm not sure what the brand is, and my boyfriend was going to take a picture, but I can't seem to find it...

Lesson learned: I don't like the pudding cups or tins, so if I want to try a UK pudding, I'll find a recipe and make it myself!