a scientific report
the project: to road-test some of the fillings people have (incomprehensibly) not yet adopted
the fillings of the future:
i: mushrooms fried in pumpkin seed butter, with garlic oil and red wine
ii: fried bacon and date syrop
iii: chopped avocado and marmite
iv: spinach and ginger syrop
v: ham and gentleman’s relish
vi: brie and japanese plum sauce
vii: grated carrot and cinnamon
comments in reverse order of success:
6: ok this was actually just a straightforward wrong-ingredient error — when i couldn’t find any maple syrop i grabbed the plum sauce off the shelf at the last minute in sainsburys without looking properly, assuming it was hoisin, , and didn’t read the label till after i bit into the pancake: early giveaway = “ume plum seasoning: zesty alternative to vinegar”; more warning signals: “this tangy red juice, which comes from the pickling of umeboshi salt-picked plums… ” and “when using this classic japanese seasoning in place of vinegar, reduce or eliminate the slate in your recipe” — ume plum seasoning is quite salty! anyway, rationale for the brie idea was a variant on brie and cranberry; while pancake and brie both have pale an subtle flavours, which mask each other a bit, i think a tart buffer like hoisin would work pretty well…
7: i got this off the net from some menk — it’s HORRIBLE: the carrot makes everything soggy, and cinnamon doesn’t go with either — not quite worse than carrot flavoured turkish delight, which i also heartily disrecommend (haha i see i am #5 in all googleworld for the latter: “NEVER PUT A RED-CABBAGE FLAVOUR BANGER IN YOUR MOUTH — it is the CARROT-FLAVOURED TURKISH DELIGHT of the blood pudding world”) (i turned down a last-minute supper invite from tracerhand for this project, please be aware! never let it be said that freaky trigger does not sacrifice itself for its reader!)
5: ok i wanted to try PATUM PEPERIUM with something else, for symmetry’s sake, and ham seemed least problematic in my pre-taste mind: which was true, but in a rather passive way — the ham is just totally masked and might as well not be there… I JUDGE THAT gentleman’s relish goes nicely with pancake, tho you need to find a way to spread it thin
1: i got a bit overinvolved in the prep of this when i realised that pumpkin seed butter — which i got as a birthday present last year in a mini-hamper of exotic foodie stuff from my ex-ex-boss — is VERY granular and not at all buttery, ie it’s quite hard frying mushrooms in it… i used too much (non)butter, the result was a bit sandy in texture and the pumpkin kind of absorbed the other flavours — but actually the contrast with the pancake is rather subtle and not unsuccessful, tastewise and flavourwise; it’ is rather a lot of prepwork for several strong flavours to be blanketing one another…
3: again a problem with the spreading — niether pancake nor avocado being a particularly resilient surface… perhaps to drop the avocado and the marmite into a blender? but actually the contrast between avocado’s taste-texture and marmite’s is at its best when they arrive in distinct blobs; maybe gently bain-marie the marmite to get it a bit runnier first? (see WORD OF WARNING)
4: this is really nice — i used a bit too much spinach (uncooked young leaves) is all; spinach cooked with ginger is already a classic, so i was just extrapolating
2: horses on devilback (in plankates)! the error here wz the date syrop being recalcitrant coming out the bottle and i gave it a slap and (obv) it ALL came out and drenched the bacon a bit — also i’m not sure this was the best type of bacon (long-lost p^nk s Ft project: to get my head and yours round the qualities of all the bacons, they are sill a total mystery to me): but TOTALLY GO WITH THIS IN FUTURE
WORD OF WARNING 1:
Actually pancake delivery requires close attention to the state of the pan — you know the way the first pancake is always rubbish? Well, ANY break in total attention while making pancakes will produce another “first” pancake when you return to the production line, hence any other prep going on the same time is asking for trouble, esp. prep where you’re working with other pans… I actually only had to throw one pancake away but a couple of the late ones — after a break to taste the early experiments — were a bit rubbish
WORD OF WARNING 2:
Pancakes are filling! I was mostly doing half-and-half here — ie two trial fillings per pancake — as there was only one of me tasting, but even so I had no room for a PROPER lemon-and–sugar old-skool for “pudding”; also sadly the last one i ate was the most “puddingy” ie the HORRIBLE carrot and cinnamon botch :(
CONCLUSIONS:
Further work needed on the spreadability issue (3, 5). 2-4 should be added to the standard pancake filling canon FORTHWITH obv, as shd gentleman’s relish ON ITS OWN. I think brie and hoisin would work. The mushroom deal is too fiddly, but the “sandy” texture of pumpkin seed butter has genuine possibility.
Unattempted (TMFD): while googling I found a recipe for “caramelised satsumas”!!