Today it’s Pentecost! With Pentecost we
celebrate the descent of the holy spirit. As a child I used to celebrate
Pentecrost in red dresses or red turtlenecks on Scottish kilts with red tights
and of course my favorite red dress shoes. For the liturgical color of
Pentecrost is flaming red. Despite the fact I don’t celebrate Pentecrost in
church anymore, the color red returns every year on Whitsunday. If it wasn’t
for my wardrobe, then definitely on my plate! As for me the concurrency of
Pentecrost and the peak season for strawberries just can’t be a coincidence. I
wanted to start my Sunday with pancakes and strawberries. Not just any
pancakes, no, I decided to make perfect pancakes made of buckwheat, amaranth,
and millet. Because let’s be honest: a celebration like Pentecost deserves more
than just wheat flour. Much more!
Pancakes are as old as written history
itself. The ancient Greek ate pancakes for breakfast made of spelt, olive oil,
milk, and honey. After that the pancake became an even bigger hit than
democracy: in every far corner of the world you will find regional pancake
recipes. In the Netherlands alone we recognise the ‘regular’ pancake,
flapjacks, fritters (‘poffertjes’, this really is a Dutch dish so it’s hard to
find an English equivalent), and traditional Dutch baby pancakes
(‘drie-in-de-pan’, literally three in the pan, because you can bake three of
them at once in a large skillet). Aside from these Dutch recipes we also know
the French crèpes and the American pancakes.
In Roman Catholic English-speaking
countries there actually is such a thing as Pancake Tuesday. It’s the day
preceding Ash Wednesday. On this Tuesday people traditionally baked pancakes
finishing all the fat before Lent, the forty days of fasting before Easter
Sunday. Nowadays schools organise genuine pancake races on Pancake Tuesday:
every contestant has to run down a running track holding a skillet with a
pancake which he has to flip while running. Losing your pancake means a sure
disqualification. Genius tradition if you ask me.
These pancake races can be traced back to
1445. In the little village of Olney in England there lived a housewife. She
had a very busy day that Tuesday before Lent. She had to wash the laundry,
sweep the floor, make the beds, feed the children, wave the husband goodbye and
suddenly she realised she had to bake pancakes as well. She considered. And
then she considered some more: the dished had to be done and the garbage had to
be taken outside. Maybe she would skip the pancakes this year. But then again,
she really couldn’t afford to throw out the last unused fat before Lent. So she
decided to multitask: she would do the dishes and bake the pancakes at the same
time. While she was busy handling both the dishwashing brush and the skillet
suddenly the church bells began to toll. She was baking the last pancake, but
she couldn’t leave it on the hot stove, it would certainly burn! In a blind
panic – you just can’t be late for church on Shrove Tuesday! – she flung the
brush in the sink and took the skillet outside. While running towards the
church she flipped the pancake in the skillet: behold the emergence of the
pancake race.
The perfect pancakes in this recipe are
made with soaked grains which gives the pancakes an acquired taste. By this
time my taste buds are totally accustomed to the special taste of buckwheat,
but if you’re a noob you may have to take time to get used to it. Even so,
these pancakes are a perfect starting point for you to learn to appreciate
buckwheat. Not only are pancakes associated with celebrations, you can also
fill them with anything to your liking! It’s a vegan recipe but you can of
course experiment using eggs and milk. Be creative! In the spirit of Pentecost I
made a red strawberry sauce especially for these pancakes.
Recipe Perfect Pentecost Pancakes
Serves 2
Ingredients
100 gr buckwheat
100 gr whole
grains of your choice (quinoa, amaranth, millet)
200 ml water
(this is to soak the grains, so do not replace this with milk)
1 tbsp apple
vinegar or lemon juice
200 ml water
(this water you could replace with milk)
Optional for the
batter:
1 egg
50 gr raisins or
dried cranberries
Optional topping
combinations while baking:
Apple and cinnamon
Banana and
coconut
1. Soak
buckwheat and other whole grains of your choice overnight in the water and the vinegar.
If you want to double the amounts of the grains, also double the amount of
water.
2. In the morning drain and rinse the grains in a very
fine sieve. Put grains and water (or milk) in your blender or food processor
and blend on high speed until smooth.
3. Heat a skillet on high fire. Add 1 tbsp of
coconutoil or sunfloweroil. Make sure the pan is smoking hot before pouring the
batter into it. You can choose to make little pancakes (my favorite) of large
ones. If your blender has a nice spout you can directly pour the batter out of
your blender and into your skillet.
4. Bake your pancakes until they’re golden on each
side. You can bake them as gold as you like. I like them crispy and crunchy and
as gold as it gets. If you’re using a high quality skillet you don’t have to
use oil between every pancake. Serve your pancakes hot with red strawberry
sauce and sprinkle them with honey, maple syrop or ginger syrop.
Recipe Red
Strawberry Sauce
Makes 1 jar
Ingredients:
500 gr strawberries, cut in half
2 tbsp honey, or maple syrop
1 star anise
1 cardamon pod
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground ginger
peel for 1/4 orange
pulp from 1/2 vanilla pod
1. Put all ingredients in a jar. Push the strawberries
together using a spoon to extract the juices. Stirr well, close the jar and
place it in the fridge for about an hour to marinate the flavors. Serve with
Perfect Pentecost Pancakes or on toast. Will keep for about 4 days in the
frigde.
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