Short and Tweet Challenge 15: Crêpes, Scotch Pancakes or Battered Fish & Onion Rings
This week’s #shortandtweet challenge from Dan Lepard’s Short & Sweet was for Crêpe Suzette Tour d’Argent pg 280; Betsy’s Scotch pancakes pg 279; or the Beer batter for fish that Dan details pg 285 (with a helpful suggestion to make onion rings from any leftover batter: “frozen ones on sale at the supermarket are just so dismal”). The opening photograph is @lgarland1’s luscious stack of Betsy’s Scotch pancakes.
Working with batters seems to have created feelings of guilt (“It’s batter, it will go straight to my thighs”) and nostalgia for tea-time/breakfast pancakes and proper fish and chips.
Betsy’s Scotch pancakes were a popular choice. I’ve storifyed @lgarland1 of Lauren Garland’s pancakes because they illustrate an additional note that Dan Lepard offered when some of us were surprised by the thickness of the batter. To paraphrase, because there are so many variables involved, humidity and temperature of the day and the ingredients affect the absorption of the liquid into the dry ingredients, it is notoriously difficult to give accurate liquid amounts for batters. Most batters will benefit from a little test-cooking and thickness adjustment before preparing a full batch. Interestingly, Dan says, ” [Scotch pancakes] should be thick, almost like a soft bread, almost like a English muffin”. Lauren’s pancakes look like they match that description so she might have some useful advice on batter thickness for anyone who wants to experiment.
The chemical activity for the Scotch pancakes is a judicious combination of ingredients, the viscosity of the batter and heat. It’s a batter that releases some air bubbles and traps others. Both the milk and egg contribute steam and this helps the batter to rise alongside the quick lift from the bicarbonate of soda and cream of tartar. Betsy Morrison mentions the importance of not turning the pancake more than once and this may be because turning encourages the flour protein and eggs to set on both sides which would restrict vertical expansion? The recipe instructs us to turn the pancake when we see “the air bubbles pop on top..’Not back and forth, mind, that only makes them tough’”. It’s possible that, once turned, the air bubbles continue to push up but are prevented from escaping by the set top and therefore give a light, aerated crumb. I’d speculate that the sugar might also work to preserve a tender crumb. However, I may be very wrong albeit it might explain why the drop scones with which some of us may be more familiar, tend to be flatter and less aerated.
Several of us reported a difficulty in finding a sweet temperature spot on our griddles or gas braai for these scones and had a few singed test runs. Nonetheless, I think we all enjoyed them, including that very important arbiter of home cooking, Little E - resident critic of Jerronimissus. @jerronimissus made a stack for breakfast and reports, “Little E’s opinion is what we’re all most concerned with and she said she wanted to eat the whole lot…”: Practising for Pancake Day. @jerronimissus has some useful shots of the batter thickness for anyone who wants to compare the one that they used to another.
Mitchdafish of Mitchadafish blog happily tweeted: “They were brilliant, loved the way they rose, magical. Maple syrup / lemon mmmmm”.
@lapindor of Lapin d’Or and More posted: Drop everything, the drop scones are ready. I not only enjoyed looking at the photographs but yet again envied the welsh griddle pan last seen in cider vinegar muffin week. I recommend going across to see the savoury and sweet ways in which Jill served these which has me reflecting on why I haven’t tried blue cheese and honey and when I might rectify this.
My Scotch Pancakes varied in depth, according to how much milk was in the batter. The very thick batter clung on to the spoon and had to be scraped onto the pan and pushed out into a circle: it rose a lot and had a light crumb.
After adding more milk, the pancakes were more like a ‘conventional’ drop scone - thinner and more dense.
I’m, again, grateful to @underthebluegum of Under the Blue Gum Tree for the vicarious enjoyment of a landscape I haven’t seen and a style of cooking I’ve not tried (Claire cooked on the gas braai mentioned above): Short and Tweet: Scotch Pancakes, Crepes Suzette and Beer Battered Fish. “I love cooking Scotch pancakes and often make them on trips into the African bush as they are so easy and no resting of the batter is needed. From start to finish, you can have a steaming pile of pancakes in about 10 minutes.”
Claire provides a charming account of what lies behind the name, Crêpe Suzette Tour d’Argent, and recreates this elegant pudding. I agree with her observation, “the big revelation was the inclusion of vanilla in the crêpes which added a really lovely creaminess”. Despite her disparaging notes about her flambé skills the crêpes were well received.
Finally, in a nostalgic flourish and in contrast to the sophistication of the crêpes: ” I made Dan’s beer batter for fish which was certainly very welcome as a good portion of British battered fish and chips is one of the foods I miss most from home…Dan’s recipe calls for the use of a “light ale” but South Africa being a nation of lager rather than ale drinkers, I had to settle for a rather dark imported Belgian beer, which whilst imparting a lot of flavour, did lead to quite a dark, rather than golden, batter”. The onion rings met with approval and Claire suggests that they might benefit from a light dredging with flour to help the batter adhere to them.
My battered fish didn’t take on the same hue as Claire’s because I used a pale ale. I also suspect that I was overly frugal with the volume of cooking oil which added to the difficulties of cooking the early batches of fish and onion rings because the oil temperature dropped steeply when an item was added. Nonetheless, the batter was light and crunched in a satisfying manner which contrasted well with the fish.
I haven’t battered and deep-fried fish in a long time. To digress, I think a number of home cooks have taken all of the warnings about chip-pan fires and such so much to heart that it’s difficult to feel confident around a pan of hot oil, no matter how well prepared you are with fire blankets and other paraphenalia. It’s rather a shame because it’s easy to lose track of how good fish and chips can be (I don’t live near a good take-away) and the merits of deep-frying as a method for cooking fish.
Fish is notoriously fiddly to cook. It needs to be cooked at lower temperatures than meat and is annoyingly fragile and prone to a collapse even when cooked perfectly and handled as if it’s more delicate than gossamer. For some fish, protecting it with a batter and then immersing it in hot oil (which Harold McGee reports to be “a relatively inefficient conductor of heat”), insulates the fish and heats it gently from all sides, allowing it to cook through, yet remain moist.
The first piece of fish I cooked dropped the temperature of the oil so much that it took a while to recover which is why the fish was dry after opening it (the fish was overcooked although the batter was not). After lecturing myself on the false economy of using too little cooking oil if it meant the fish didn’t cook properly, I heated a larger amount of oil and the subsequent pieces were fine. I rarely deep-fry, so I havered about whether I’d cook this recipe again although everyone who ate it enjoyed it with a sense of being indulged. It feels like an extravagant use for oil/dripping (I have some irrational guilt around anything that approximates to food waste). On balance, I would cook this again but I’d agree a time with neighbours as it’s probably worth me cooking enough for a fairly large number to justify that amount of oil and the lingering smell. (Time wasting economies R Us.)
It’s apparent that #shortandtweet search doesn’t always show everyone’s tweets so I apologise if I missed any notifications - please let me know and I’ll update this compilation.
Next week’s challenge recipes are all pies with a slightly unusual pastry. Pg 487 is the recipe for light cream cheese pastry and it is flexible and versatile: it rolls easily straight from the fridge and it freezes well. Dan suggests: Chicken and mushroom pies, pg 488; Shin of beef, chorizo and pinto bean pies, pg 489; Pork and parsnip pies, pg 491; Leek, smoked haddock and Lancashire cheese pies, pg 491; or Broccoli, Stilton and potato pies, pg 492. NB, in keeping with the quick and easy nature of this pastry recipe, Dan suggests using cans of soup to make the gravy for these recipes. However, I’ve substituted my own soup in a couple of the recipes and adjusted the thickness with either flour or some beaten egg, depending on the available ingredients. If you blog about your experience with a recipe, please post links in the comments or tweet pictures or links to @foodcraftspace or @evidencematters using the hashtag #shortandtweet - Thank you. It’s the same procedure if you don’t blog but just post a photograph of your work. Please send the links by 8pm 19 February or as soon thereafter as practical.
