T.S. Eliot was wrong; August is the cruelest month, not April.
April: cool and rainy. August: swelteringly hot and dry (in
my neck of the woods, anyway).
I’m back. Sort of. The day job has been keeping me
ridiculously busy, so I’ve not done any blog-worthy cooking. Or rather, I have,
but nothing I could say anything witty or original about. For instance, the
mega-talented J. Kenji Lopez-Alt of Serious Eats created this amazing recipe
for the best gazpacho I’ve ever had. But given that I did exactly what he says (aside from straining the finished
soup, because I’m lazy and straining is boring), there really wasn’t any value
added to my version, if you’ll excuse my use of bureaucrat-ese.
Why not, you ask? (I know you don’t care, but humor me). Well,
for starters, the recipe isn’t exactly what you’d call taxing. It’s from
Nigella Lawson’s book Nigella Express, and although it’s not a bad book, it’s
not one I cook from often—Nigella got dangerously close to Sandra Lee territory on this book, and I don’t think
it’s as strong as her other works.
Nevertheless, this is a dish that I make fairly often, and
even though the key ingredient is rather…pedestrian, it’s quite good and it
dresses up nicely, as we shall see.
All right, then, so Potato Pancakes à la Nigella. You start
by mincing a couple of green onions. I also add about ½ teaspoon of salt and some black pepper (Nigella and I differ on seasoning sometimes).
Then we add 3 eggs, 2 tablespoons of olive oil and ½ cup
milk. Mix that together.
Fair warning: if you are Irish, look away now.
Yup. We’re using instant mashed potatoes. I suspect that
I’ve lost some of you, but give this a chance. Although they’re not
particularly good if you try to make plain mashed potatoes out of them, the
potato flakes work very nicely in this application. FWIW, they also work well as a coating for fish fillets or chicken cutlets. I should also note that while
I bought the fancy-shmancy Bob’s Red Mill version for this demo, Hungry Jack
will work just fine. You use ¾ cup of potato flakes, along with ¼ cup flour, ½
teaspoon baking powder, and a bit of lemon juice.
After that, it’s just a matter of sautéing the pancakes and
adding some garnishes. Melt some butter in a pan over medium heat—I have better
luck with a non-stick pan for these.
Put some blobs of batter into the pan and cook for a couple
of minutes until a golden crust forms on the bottom so that they’ll hold
together.
Then flip them over, and cook on the other side for a couple
of minutes.
Turn them out onto a plate. If you’re cooking a lot of them,
you can keep them warm in a 200F oven for a while.
Top them with smoked salmon and a dollop of sour cream. You
could garnish them with chives, or green onion tops, or if you are particularly
flush, caviar.
And that’s it. Smaller versions of these are nice with cocktails
(Nigella’s suggestion). Larger versions of these are good for a quick dinner
(my suggestion). Bon appetìt, y’all.
From Nigella Lawson, Nigella
Express
3 eggs
½ cup whole milk
2 scallions, finely sliced
2 tablespoons olive oil
¾ cup instant potato flakes
¼ cup flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon lemon juice
12 oz. smoked salmon
small bunch of fresh dill
1.
In a batter bowl or similar container, whisk the
eggs, milk, finely sliced scallions, and olive oil together.
2.
Stir in the potato flakes, flour, baking powder,
and then finally the lemon juice.
3.
Heat a flat griddle and drop tablespoon-sized
dollops of the mixture onto the hot griddle.
4.
Cook for about 30 seconds a side or until golden
brown and firm enough at the edges to flip.
5.
Once you have made the pancakes and they’ve
cooled a little, tear off tiny strips of smoked salmon and arrange the slices
on each pancake.
6.
Decorate each salmon-topped pancake with a tiny
feather of dill.
Makes 30
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