Flippin’ lovely: How the experts eat their pancakes
From buttermilk to kimchi, pancake aficionados share many wonderful ways to mix it up this Shrove Tuesday, writes Katy McGuinness
‘It is Shrove Tuesday, and the men from the fields tread quickly coming in, because they know there will be pancakes for supper — real pancakes, none of your paperthin rolled foolishness, but good substantial buttermilk pancakes.
“There’s a clatter of them as high as your hip waiting on the hob, with melted butter and sugar trickling down the sides.
“What matter if the woman of the house has developed thawlock from beating and mixing and turning pancakes for the past two hours? It’s all in a good cause. Isn’t it Pancake Night?”
From ‘Full & Plenty’, by Maura Laverty, with thanks to reader Dan O’Hara
It’s safe to assume that there won’t be too many women in Ireland developing thawlock — whatever that is — from churning out pancakes today, but most of us will be looking forward to a pancake or two at some point.
For those who want to shake it up a little and step away from the traditional crêpes with lemon and sugar — not that there’s anything wrong with those — I spoke to some pancake aficionados to find out what they’ve got up their sleeves to celebrate Shrove Tuesday.
Chef Holly Dalton of Bobby’s Wine Bar on Baggot Street established a reputation as the Pancake Queen of Dublin when the buttermilk chicken, honey butter and fermented hot sauce pancakes she developed in her former job as Head Chef at Gertrude became a viral pancake sensation.
Holly first started making pancakes for her family on Shrove Tuesday at the age of 12 — and says that the satisfaction that she got from it kick-started her career in food.
“One fateful Pancake Tuesday, I asked my mum if I could make the pancakes for our family instead of her. Given that she had to cook for us every day — she may have been growing weary of it at this stage — she didn’t hesitate in handing over the reins to me.
“From that day on I was hooked on cooking. I decided I wanted to become a chef and all future pocket money was spent on cookbooks until I got my first job in a kitchen at 15. Pancakes were my gateway drug to the cooking world.
“Pancake Tuesday is my favourite day of the year after Christmas. My mum always put on a huge spread of toppings — ice-cream on pancakes was the Celtic Tiger revelation we had been waiting for! This year I’ll have a few friends over and put on a spread of my own. I even made a batch of dulce de leche a few weeks ago for this very occasion.
“Given my love for pancakes, I don’t just make them on Pancake Tuesday, far from it. Every morning myself and my fiancé, Seb, have off together, I make pancakes, so that’s once a week at least. My former jobs as Head Chef of 3fe and Gertrude were both pancakeheavy, but my love for them never waned. Part of the reason I love pancakes is that they are minimum effort, maximum reward. Eggs, milk and flour are household staples that are the foundation to crêpes, American stacks, Japanese souffle pancakes, kimchi pancakes, drop scones, rice cooker pancakes and more. I’ve made them all, I love them all and I will continue to make pancakes, sigh over their glory, reflect on my culinary past and slice into a stack every opportunity I get.”
Russell Alford and Patrick Hanlon, who blog as GastroGays, are also keen on pancakes — with a particular fondness for the Findus Crispy Pancakes that many of us remember for childhood. When these were discontinued a few years ago (thankfully they are now back in the supermarket freezer cabinets) they came up with their own version, filled with chicken,
broccoli, bacon and mushrooms, the recipe for which you’ll find on their website, gastrogays. com.
“It seems this kitsch — and sort of naff — classic simply cannot be consigned to the past,” they say. “People may take the piss out of these, but some comfort foods deserve to out-live us all.”
Karen Coakley, who runs food tours of Kenmare, says she’ll be whipping up a batch of fluffy pancakes for her family and plans to layer them with tart homemade lemon curd and top them with Greek yoghurt, berries and icing sugar.
“I’ve been obsessed with lemon curd since childhood,” she says, “it’s got to be so sharp that it makes you suck your cheeks in.”
For a twist on the classic, Barry Liscombe, chef at Hartes in Kildare, has experimented with hemp flour and hemp protein and that, “apart from the colour they were quite tasty!”, while reader Maria O’Brien uses her waffle maker to make a pimped up porridge in pancake form, using oat flour, oat milk, egg and vanilla.
Chef Joyce Hickey, an expert in hospital and nursing home food, made pancakes using milled flaxseed made into a paste with water instead of an egg for a patient with an egg allergy and that they “turned out ok”, while food blogger Katya Valadeau’s preference is for ‘island style’ pancakes made with beer batter, instead of milk batter.
But not everyone likes a sweet pancake. Home cook Johann Doorley says that she loves the dosa at Iyer’s Café in Cork, served with sambal on the side, and makes pudla, spicy Indian pancakes, with gram flour using a recipe from Madhur Jaffrey’s Flavours of India book.
Broadcaster and journalist, Suzanne Campbell, says that her children have had success making pancakes with wholemeal flour “because we ran out of plain, it was great for savoury pancakes and with the addition of dried mixed herbs and nigella seeds they were close to naan breads.”
If you don’t plan on making your own pancakes at home today, though, cafés and restaurants all over the country are waiting to step in to the breach.
Katie McCann, head chef at Gertrude on Pearse Street in Dublin, will be offering American-style buttermilk pancakes with rhubarb poached in vanilla and rose, served with custard and toasted flaked almonds, while Sweet Beat in Sligo have vegan spelt, chocolate chip pancakes with coconut whip, dulche de leche, chocolate sauce and fresh berries.
In Dublin, the Metro Café’s homemade buttermilk pancakes with honeyed butter and golden syrup are so popular with regulars that they are never off the menu, while at The Green Sheep in Thurles pancakes feature as part of a Full-Irish that also includes sausages cooked in marmalade (don’t knock ’em until you’ve tried ’em) that goes down a treat with the GAA crew after training.
At Bread 41 on Pearse Street today, owner Eoin Cluskey’s famous cruffins will all feature pancake filling flavours such as maple, pecan and lemon, and maple with bacon. The kitchen will also be knocking out a few savoury pancakes, including a kimchi version, and a croissant/ pancake hybrid with Nutella that sounds positively evil.
Chimac on Dublin’s Aungier Street will also have kimchi pancakes alongside their signature fried chicken; kimchi pancakes — which are easy to make at home — are also on the menu at Storyboard in Dublin 8, while Brickyard in Dublin 16 serves Japanese-style okonomiyaki pancakes.
If it’s been a long day, though, perhaps think about hitting the Market Bar in Dublin, which will be serving gin and tonic pancakes with strawberries from 5pm this afternoon, or heading home with the ingredients to replicate the pancakes with Baileys, bananas and cream that’s on the menu at Castlegrove House in Donegal.
“Pancake Tuesday is my favourite day of the year after Christmas’