Caitríona Redmond: How to make my Scallion Pancakes with Crème Fraiche
Pic: iStock
“It makes me feel great.”
So said my husband as we restocked the fridge last week. We tend to have three weeks of feeling flúirseach (wealthy) and then a lean week before the big restock happens every month. We never go hungry, just the fridge and the kitchen presses go through cycles.
There was a lull as we sat down with a cuppa to celebrate a morning’s worth of shopping and filling cupboards before the kids came home from school. A mutual pat on the back.
That evening I opened the fridge and it bore zero resemblance to the well-organised and stacked affair I’d spent time on. There were two human-sized reasons for its demise who had gone for a merry trundle through the contents to find the nicest ‘bits’ to munch on.
Being organised and knowing where my ingredients are helps with controlling my budget. If I can open a door and see, at a glance, exactly what I have in stock it helps with deciding what’s for dinner today, tomorrow and for the rest of next week.
There are two ways of setting out your kitchen for meal planning. Everybody knows about keeping certain ingredients in certain presses. The baking ingredients on the baking shelf, and the dried carbohydrates like pasta, rice, or couscous on another. That makes sense for stock control on a day-to-day basis.
The second method of kitchen stock control is clever and works very well for me. Before going shopping I decide on my meal plan. When I get home from the shops I refer to the meal plan and gather my ingredients into clusters. Okay, they may look like little disorganised piles on the counter until I’ve stored everything away.
Say, for example, I’ve decided to make a chicken and rice dish for dinner this evening. When I open the fridge I can see the chicken clearly labelled as “Saturday” on the bottom shelf. Directly underneath the chicken in the crisper drawer are the vegetables I’ll use for this recipe — peppers, carrots, courgettes etc. In the dried food press, I have a pot with my rice measured out, and the herbs and spices, plus dried stock are sitting on a plate. It’s a visual reminder of which ingredients go together.
When I go to cook dinner, I grab what I need from the preordained spots and then cook. There’s no guesswork for me and, if I’m not at home, the magical household helpers can find what’s for dinner easily and start the preparation without me.
I’m chasing that feeling of having won the household parenting championships. There should be an award for making it to the end of the grocery shop without feeling frazzled or burnt out. The small wins make me feel like I have accomplished something in the juggle of parenting and working.
If that small win is being organised in advance of the week ahead then I’m claiming it.
This week, even though I talk about how satisfying it is to have a full kitchen store, I want to remind you about packaging and appearance. There are thousands of social videos online where people with remarkably beautiful manicures restack their fridges and shelves.
These videos are for appearances but they also have a stealthy maximalism message. If you watch closely most, if not all, of the kitchens have clear plastic trays to hold ingredients and products. Why spend more money from your budget when what you’ve got will do just fine?
I guarantee you nobody would find my half-bags of ingredients held closed with plastic clips attractive and I couldn’t care less. Those little clips are much cheaper than plastic trays and boxes just to make everything look nice. You can’t eat plastic.
Think Blinis with an Irish twist for this recipe which uses the best of seasonal Irish ingredients. Chives and scallions are just coming back into season and are fresh, green, and peppery. Servings Preparation Time Cooking Time Total Time Course Ingredients 250g plain flour 1 teaspoon bread soda/bicarbonate of soda 2 small-medium eggs (1 large egg should be fine either) 150ml buttermilk 4 scallions, chopped finely 1 tablespoon sunflower oil for frying/greasing the pan. Method Put the flour and bread soda into a large bowl and stir so that they're combined. Make a well in the centre and crack in the two eggs, pour in the buttermilk. Whisk until you have a batter. Don't worry too much if you have small lumps, as these should disappear after the next stage. Put the oil in a heavy, shallow non-stick frying pan. Before you put the pan on the heat, spread the oil over the surface. I like to use a little bit of kitchen paper for this. Next, put it on a medium heat and allow it to come to temperature. This takes about five minutes or so. Once the pan is hot, give the batter a second vigorous whisk and you should see those lumps disappear (or at worst get smaller, they'll be gone completely in the cooking process don't worry). Add the chopped scallions at this stage and stir well to mix into the batter. Using a tablespoon as a measure, pour one portion onto the frying pan. Once the bubbles begin to appear on the surface of the pancake, and the batter has changed colour from pale to slightly darker, flip the pancake using a non-stick spatula. Cook for a further 1-2 minutes, until the pancake turns golden on both sides. Lift and serve. If you want to wait for all the pancakes to be cooked before serving, pop them onto a heat-proof plate and cover with a bit of baking parchment/tin foil, then a heavy tea towel to stop them from getting cold. Lift the "insulation" every time you cook another batch to add to the pile. Serving Suggestion: Serve with crème fraiche, thin slices of smoked salmon and chopped chives. For an extra protein hit add a poached egg on top of the pancakes.Scallion pancakes with Crème Fraiche
