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| Spinach Pancakes with Lingonberry Syrup, Quark and Pear |
Pancakes go by many different names around the world. A tall or short stack (your choice!) can be found at any truck stop in America, topped with a generous dollop of creamed butter and saturated with a heavy dose of maple syrup. If you are lucky, you’ll get the real thing: Pure Maple Syrup from Vermont. If you are less lucky, or if you taste buds are inclined in a slightly less (ahem) refined direction, you may be pouring amber colored Aunt Jemima’s or Old Fashioned Log Cabin syrup from your jug or pitcher over your fluffy stack of buttermilk, buckwheat, blueberry or sourdough pancakes. If you are blessed with a few days in Maui, you’ll be looking at toasted macadamia nuts and sliced bananas dressing your pancakes which you can then pour coconut syrup over, or introduce east to west and follow the tropical topping with Vermont’s finest.
Around Europe, I have encountered pancakes in two forms, neither of which are really very similar to the American style I ate for breakfast at home: lettu (Finnish) or crepe (French) are essentially the same thing, though varied in the way they are cooked and presented. The Finns tend to prefer their lettus as far from the city as possible, frying them up over the campfire at their cabins and and out in the woods somewhere, fried in butter and topped with strawberry jam. The French crepes I enjoyed were typically ordered at the window of a small outside kiosk, where the crepe was made to order, the batter spread thin and carefully with a long, flat blade, topped with nutella (chocolate hazelnut spread) and bananas, carefully folded, wrapped in paper, and handed to me, steaming hot to enjoy while standing up. Both are delicious.
The other form is a pancake cooked in the oven: the Finnish pannukakku, German pfannkuchen, the Dutch pannekoeken – a batter of milk, eggs and flour is poured into a pan in which butter has been melted, and is baked in the oven until it poofs up mightily. It is removed and served, preferably hot with your choice of jam or berries (typically strawberries, and freshly whipped cream. This version is not so bad either.
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| Prep the ingredients |
And then there is one more – to me the most surprising of the lot. The Finnish like something they call Pinatti Ohukaiset – Spinach pancakes. The first time I had them is also the only time they were served with a white sauce flavored with egg. Everytime afterward, I have had them served with puolukka hillo (lingonberry jam) which is very similar in flavor to the cranberry sauce my mother served with the Thanksgiving turkey when I was a kid, though the flavor is slightly more mild. Spinach pancakes can be purchased from the grocery stores in Finland in long, skinny packages containing 20 or so of the pre-fried pancakes in the microwave. They are typically made with milk, flour, eggs, a little oil, sugar, salt and pepper. They are delicious made at home and eaten fresh and hot from the pan.
They can also be made, as I discovered last weekend, using no milk at all, but by replacing the milk with sourdough starter, the sugar with honey, and omitting the black pepper. The added baking soda helps them puff up a little in the pan. I served mine with lingonberry syrup, rahka (quark) a fresh pear, and some frozen lingonberries tossed over for a delicious supper. If you can’t find quark, greek yogurt makes a wonderful substitute.
Sourdough Spinach Pancakes
2 cups sourdough starter
2 eggs, beaten
2 tablespoons liquid honey
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 teaspoon salt
150 g of spinach (can be frozen spinach that you’ve thawed, or freshly steamed spinach, cooled and chopped fine)
Combine and set aside:
1 tablespoon warm water
1 teaspoon baking soda
Mix all ingredients except water and baking soda together thoroughly in a large bowl until the texture of the batter is smooth and the spinach is incorporated evenly throughout. Add the baking soda-water mixture and gently stir to incorporate – do not beat. Allow the batter to fizz and rise for 2 minutes.
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| Fry them up! |
Heat a frying pan, preferably cast iron, over medium heat. Melt a small amount of butter in the pan and pour one scant tablespoons of batter in the pan to form small pancakes. You will be able to fit four pancakes at a time in the average sized frying pan. Cook until the surface of the pancake is covered with bubbles – 1-2 minutes, and then flip over using a spatula. Cook another 1-2 minutes, and then remove the finished pancakes from the pan and place on an oven-proof plate in the warm oven. Repeat until all pancakes have been cooked.
Lingonberry Syrup
you will want to make this before you make the pancakes as it takes more time.
2 cups of fresh or frozen lingonberries (you may use cranberries instead)
water, enough to cover the lingonberries
2/3 – 1 cup of sugar (depending on how sweet you like your syrup
Put the lingonberries in a pot and pour in enough water to just cover them. Bring the mixture to a rolling boil; reduce the heat to medium, and allow to bubble for five minutes. Smash the lingonberries with the side of a fork, wooden spoon or a potato masher – this doesn’t need to be done perfectly – you just want to break down the berries somewhat. Boil for another 5 minutes. Remove from heat.
Strain the mixture through a sieve, catching all the berry pulp and reserving the juice. Discard the berry pulp and return the juice to the pot. Add the sugar, bring the mixture to a boil. Stirring occasionally, boil the mixture, uncovered, for 15 minutes. Remove from heat.
Makes 2 cups.
To serve:
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| Hyvää Ruokahalua – Bon Appetit! |
Finished pancakes
2 pears, halved and cored
1/2 cup fresh or frozen lingonberries
1 cup quark or greek yogurt
Lingonberry syrup
Stack the pancakes seven or eight high on a plate. Place a pear half next to each pancake stack, put a generous scoop of quark or greek yogurt next to the pear, and fill the cavity of the pear with fresh or frozen lingonberries. Sprinkle lingonberries around the plate. Pour warm lingonberry syrup over the top of the pancakes, and serve. Put extra lingonberry syrup in a small pitcher on the table so that you can add additionally syrup as you go.
Serves 4.
For Traditional Finnish Spinach Pancakes:
modified from Yhteishyvä Ruokamaailma, August 2009.
2 cups of milk
2 eggs
1 – 1/4 cups of flour
1 teaspoon of salt
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
150 g of cooked, finely diced spinach
Whisk all of the ingredients together in a large bowl and allow to rest for 30 minutes. Heat a frying pan over medium heat. Once the pan is hot, melt about a teaspoon of butter in it, spread the butter evenly across the pan, and pour a scant 1 tablespoon of batter for each pancake. Cook until bubbles form across the surface of the pancake, and then flip the pancake over to cook the other side until both sides are goldn brown. You can fry about 4 small pancakes in the average size pan. Repeat until all the spinach pancakes are fried.
Topping:
2 boiled eggs
1 tin of anchovies
1/2 cup of creme fraiche
chives to garnish
Mash the eggs with a fork until they are the size of large bread crumbs. Drain the anchovies and cut into small pieces, removing any bones. Top each serving of spinach pancakes with a generous spoonful of the topping and sprinkle with chives.
Serves 4 – 6 (about 24 small pancakes)