Banana Pancakes with extra happiness

For six languid days we shared a house in Ubud with our friends, Lozzie and John. The house was perched precariously on a steep slope above a rivulet that was so far down we couldn’t see it. The surrounding gardens clung to the slope and and were full of the soothing ribbiting of frogs and birds and geckos. Once I’d grown accustomed to the worrying amount of steep stairs and my (completely rational) fear that the house would slide off the slope if it rained, it was wonderful. I gave up wondering how on earth they had built any of it in the heat and settled in.

This was the part of our holiday where we forgot what day it was.

There was a cooked breakfast every morning served by our hostess, Ketut. Hotels that we later stayed in, tended to serve a blander, rolled version of bananas pancakes. But Ketut’s were the ones that Lozzie and I raved about. They were deliciously lacy, served flat and topped with freshly grated coconut mixed with a little salt. Even Glenn, who doesn’t care much for pancakes for breakfast, succumbed to their buttery banana goodness.

Ingredients (makes 8 pancakes)
For the batter:
2 large eggs
1  1/4 cups plain flour
3/4 milk
1 pinch salt
1 tbsp melted butter

To serve:
2 bananas thinly sliced
1/2 cup of fresh grated coconut mixed with half a pinch of salt
Honey (for drizzling)

Method
Whisk the eggs in a large bowl. Add the rest of the batter ingredients and mix til smooth. Cover and rest for at least 30 minutes.

To cook, have your banana slices ready. Stir up the rested batter. If it seems too thick, add some more milk. It needs to be thin enough to spread in the pan when poured. Use a non-stick frying pan over a moderate heat. Add 1/2 tsp of butter. When the butter foams, use a serving spoon to pour mixture into the pan. Let it spread a little, then place 6 – 8 slices of banana evenly across the pancake. When you can see that the mixture is just about cooked through, use a large spatula to flip the pancake over. Let the banana side sizzle for a minute and then remove.

Serve banana side down, topped with the grated coconut and drizzled with runny honey.

 

Chicken and Prawn Spring Roll Pancakes

One childhood memory that won’t ever leave me is the time a shitty little neighbourhood kid had me utterly convinced that his real parents were aliens. He told me they were due to come back for him at any moment and would probably blow up the earth when they left afterwards in their spaceship. I believed his story. The way a child truly believes in Santa and lucky dips.

Soak your mushies for at least half an hour in hot water. When you chop them – remove the stems

It was the middle of summer and we were sitting in a cubby which was actually an empty water tank. It was unbearably hot in there but I was terrified that if I moved I’d get zapped by the approaching alien parents. The smartest strategy seemed to be to stay out of their line of vision. Even if it meant not breathing fresh air for an unspecified amount of time.

And then Mum called me inside the house to eat spring roll pancakes and I instantly forgot to be scared and ran off to join my family for dinner. The point being, your favourite foods can distract you from anything – even impending alien attack or the end of the world.

Spring roll pancakes (warning: some waiting required)

Pancake mixture:

3 cups plain flour
6 eggs
1 1/2 cup water
2 tablespoons peanut oil
pinch salt

Combine in a large jug or bowl. Blitz with a hand mixer until smooth. Cover mixture and leave to stand for at least 4 hours. Mix again. Add more water until the mixture is the consistency of thin cream. This is important. The mixture needs to spread easily in the frying pan to create large thin pancakes. Like crepes, only stronger and able to hold a decent amount of filling without breaking.

Cook your thin, crepey pancakes in a non stick pan on one side only. If you have a crepe maker, use that. Set aside.

Crepey pancakes – thin but strong

Pancake filling:

500g chicken thighs (thinly sliced)
250g peeled green prawns
1/2 cup dried Chinese mushrooms soaked in hot water for an hour and then chopped
500g bean sprouts
1 bunch spring onions chopped

Marinade:

4 tablespoons soy sauce
3 tablespoons rice wine
2 teaspoon sesame oil
half teaspoon cinnamon
2 clove minced garlic
pinch white pepper
pinch salt
1 teaspoon raw sugar

Marinate the sliced chicken for at least two hours. Use a large frying pan or wok to fry chicken slices until almost cooked. Add prawns and chopped mushrooms. Stir until prawns cooked then add spring onions and beans sprouts. Keep tossing the sprouts through the mixture for two minutes or until the bean sprouts are cooked but not soggy.

Take a thin pancake and place a heaped tablespoonful of filling in the middle. Wrap like a parcel and place folded side down in a pan and shallow fry on both sides in peanut oil. Mum actually used to deep fry them briefly in a wok. Either way is very very good. Don’t be alarmed at the size. The filling is delicately flavoured and the pancakes make them weighty enough to have for dinner.

Serve with oyster sauce, beer

and a tall tale.