For Pancake Day 2023 I made a different pancake for every meal and here’s how it went

Pancake day, or Shrove Tuesday as it is formally referred to, is possibly the best food-themed day to exist.

It’s the last day before Lent that one can conscionably indulge in all that’s good about the culinary world, and bring together the holy trinity of milk, flour and eggs to create something so divine that this year I decided to have one for every meal.

No, I did not just have sugar and lemon three times over. I put thought and care into it. I gave it un petit peu of that je ne sais quoi. I nursed my creations creations into three works of pure gastronomy that wouldn’t look out of place at Flat White.

Having spent all night creating the perfect crepe batter, here are all the pancake dishes I made on Pancake Day 2023…

Breakfast

Starting off pancake day with a proven classic, crepes with various toppings (much better than pancakes). The one’s I’ve shown here are the lemon and sugar variant (sue me if they’re boring, they’re still really good), but another topping I’d recommend would be using the blueberries, syrup/honey and powder sugar. Spending the whole morning making a ridiculous amount of (some failed batches which I ended up scoffing down as my flatmates did not get up in time), I can say it was worth it. With that, here are the ingredients and steps for the perfect crepe batter.

Ingredients (six portions, if you don’t have any failed batches):

• 500 ml milk
• 1 cup flour
• 2 eggs

Steps:

• Mix in the flour with the two eggs and whip with a whisk until the egg becomes fully incorporated with the flour
• Add in milk until the mixture becomes liquid, but thick enough to coat the back of a spoon.
• Add a little butter to the pan to create that golden colour on pancakes (I unfortunately forgot that step in the half-awake state I was in this morning)
• Add enough crepe batter to coat the bottom of the pan, flip when the surface appears to almost dry.
• Fill with any toppings you wish and fold onto plate

Lunch

I’m not usually one for savoury crepes, but I thought that because it’s lunch, I’d experiment. While the savoury crepe did exceed my expectations, sweet pancakes are still the one for me, and anyone who says otherwise is a madman. For pancake day, I used the excess crepe batter to wrap a filling I improvised out of some food materials I had in the closet. May sound a little too experimental for most people, but I created a savoury curried tuna crepe. To put it in perspective, think of it as a wrap, but made better through that velvety silky crepe, wrapped aroound this package, revealing a warm, spiced, creamy filling. With that image in your heads, here’s the recipe for the filling, which only took 10 minutes to make.

Ingredients: 

• Canned tuna in sunflower oil (Pro tip, always get canned tuna in sunflower oil. Don’t get it in spring water)
• Two sprigs of spring onion, chopped and separated into the white and green parts
• One tablespoon of Philadelphia cheese spread (The Herb Spread if you’re feeling adventurous)
• Half a red pepper, julienned (cut into thin strips)
• Half a yellow peppe, julienned
• Tumeric, Chille Cayenne Pepper and Garam Masalla powder.
• Salt and pepper to taste

Steps:

• Separate the canned tuna from the sunflower oil and add the tuna chunks into a bowl
• Add in the peppers and half the green part of the spring onion to the same bowl and mix. Make sure to break up the big chunks of tuna.
• Heat a pan with the sunflower oil from the canned tuna and add in the white parts of the green onion.
• Add in the tuna mixture and then season the pan with all seasonings.
• After the mixture is incorporated with all seasonings, add in the Philadelphia Cheese spread and mix until it becomes creamy.
• Add into a crepe and fold it together.
• Garnish with the rest of the green onion and enjoy.

Dinner

For dinner, I’ve decided to venture into Japan and attempt their savoury pancake, the Okonomiyaki. Essentially, its a mixture of chopped up ingredients binded together by a smooth pancake batter, creating a thick, fluffy pancake. Creating essentially this fluffy savoury velvety disk, topped with a sweet barbecue sauce and mayonnaise, this savoury delight creates a bomb of umami flavours, forcing me to attempt to avoid the temptation of scoffing the whole thing down as quickly as possible. Here’s a mixture of the Okonomiyaki and the barbecue sauce, which you can use on anything else.

Ingredients (Creates 8 portions):

For the batter:

• 2 cups flour
• 4 eggs
• A quarter of a head of cabbage, sliced thinly
• 3 sprigs of spring onion, greens and whites separated
• 3 strips of bacon (optional)

For the barbecue sauce:

• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 400 ml soy sauce
• A big dollop of oyster sauce (able to be found in your local asian grocery store)
• A big dollop of ketchup
• A couple shakes of Worcestershire sauce (It’s pretty hard to pronounce this word)

Steps:

• Start by combining one cup of flour with 4 eggs and whisk together until homogenous.
• Add in water if needed to ensure the mixture is runny
• Add in the sliced cabbage, and the white part and about 3/4 of the green part of the spring onion. Mix until homogenous.
• Add some oil to a non-stick pan, then add in two ladles of the batter, ensuring that there is an even spread on the pan.
• Meanwhile, combine all the ingredients for the barbecue sauce and whisk in a container to create the sauce.
• After witnessing the sides of the pancake become slightly golden brown, use your spatula to help slide the pancake onto a plate. Optionally add the three strips of bacon onto the non-cooked side.
• Place the pan onto the plate and flip the two around to flip the pancake onto the non-cooked side.
• Wait about 3-5 minutes then slide the pancake onto the plate.
• Coat the top of the pancake in the barbecue sauce, then drizzle on some mayonnaise and use the rest of the green onions as a garnish for presentation purposes.
• Cut into triangles like a pizza and enjoy.

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