I often have folks ask me – as someone who’s been exposed to a greater variety of recipes than most – what’s the best, easiest way to get into home cooking? I’ve uncovered a small but invaluable trove of ‘absolute-easiest recipes’ any newbie can master!
Okay. I’ll confess: I’ve been feeding my curiosity about where dear, wee Jamie Oliver has been up to as I went on my way these many recent years labouring to perfect the Fab Food Blog. And i’ve made some fascinating discoveries.
What, pray tell, is it?
One or to of you may have guessed: It’s the lowly, universally-beloved pancake!
Like the ubiquitous flatbread, there’s some form of pancake in almost every officially-recognised cuisine in the world. And folks around the globe have come up with almost limitless ways to use pancakes in their own diverse and fascinating ways…
Just 3 ingredients?
There’s an old saying – about where the line lies between the ‘sublime’ and the ‘ridiculous’ in any given progression of ideas.
I’d have to say, in most things food, it lies between 3 ingredients and 2. If you try to come up with real dishes that use only 2 ingredients, you’re probably just putting together a couple of complementary products made op of many other discrete ingredients, not really cooking… Like putting jam on toast. Or cream in coffee. Or nacho sauce on corn chips.
With three ingredients – as Jamie Oliver has demonstrated – you can make at least one real ‘dish’.
Really?
Jamie’s recipe really does call for only 3 ingredients. Even though the main one might be considered an amalgam of other components.
The ‘amalgam’ is ‘self-rising flour. It qualifies in Jamie’s eyes as a single ingredient,because you can buy it from the store, pre-mixed and ready to go. Self-rising flour really just like unflavoured cake mix: flour with baking powder and a requsite amunt of salt. Jamie actually tells you how to make your own:
“You can make your own self-rising flour by adding 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder and 1/2 teaspoon salt to 1 cup all purpose flour. Mix together with a fork or a whisk.”
Or, as I always do with my dry ingredients for a cake or quick bread or biscuits, or whatever, sieve the mixture to incorporate air for a light, fluffy texture, and blend the components evenly.
What you do:
Just whisk together a cup of milk and 1 egg. Add to a cup of the aforementioned self-rising flour and fold together into a smooth, creamy batter. The baking powder in the self-rising flour will react with the milk and generate bubbles of carbon dioxide gas to raise the pancakes.
In a YouTube video demonstrating the recipe, AllRecipes.com relates: “He calls these ‘foolproof pan-cakes’. To cook them, he greases a preheated skillet with butter, ladles in the batter until the pancake is the desired size, and cooks it on one side until bubbles form on the top. Then, he lifts the pancake slightly to ensure it’s ready to [turn] before flipping it.”
“Once he flips the pancake, he spreads butter on the cooked side while it’s still cooking, which is a genius move to make sure every inch of the pancake is covered in glorious melted butter.”
The real genius in the notion of a newbie cook making a simple pancake as their first dish is, there are as many ways as they are cooks to embellish it and serve it. Which makes it each newbie’s ‘own’ dish right from the get-go. And there’s nothing like a ‘sense of ownership’ to cement the newborn relationship between the newbie and the new skill…
My take
It went by really fast so you might have missed the sidebar opportunity in this post: you now know EXACTLY how to make your own self-rising flour – a secret ingredient in any raised ad hoc creation you might have an inspiration-of-the-moment to try!
But more to the point: The more newbie cooks you can inspire using the 3-ingredient pancake recipe, the greater your reputation grows over time as a wise and skillful teacher, and an overall culinary genius!
~ Maggie J.