Cooking The Books

Oat/Oatmeal Buttermilk Pancakes (Can Be Gluten-Free)

After the run of Japanese food time it's time to hop across the Pacific to the good ol' US of A.

Like many others I took the new year as an excuse to alter my diet, specifically getting some porridge into my morning routine.  I'd heard porridge would stop those 10.30am hunger pangs, not to mention giving me a welcome glut of fibre first thing, and so fought through the wallpaper-paste texture and taste of it plain for a couple of weeks, before giving in and first adding maple syrup and then a banana.  By this point it was actually pretty damn tasty but I then realised it was even worse at keeping my hunger at bay than my previous breakfast of a couple of eggs on toast was, so that was the end of that one.

This left me with some porridge oats that needed using up so first I made a few Staffordshire Oatcakes, absolutely gorgeous things that are deserving of far more accolade, let alone knowledge of their existence, than they have outside of Stoke.  Do yourself a favour and make some, I doubt you'll be disappointed. 

I still had lots of maple syrup too though so thoughts turned to these pancakes, thick and risen like your standard American pancake but with the earthy taste of oats, the buttermilk giving them a slightly sour tang that is balanced by the sweet syrup.  Made for friends at the weekend they were a success all round.

Following this post I made these again, altering slightly to make a gluten-free version suitable for my gf's coeliac mum.  I used gluten-free oats and a presciption gluten-free white bread flour (Glutafin), I also added an extra egg as I was worried about them holding together with the lack of gluten.  They worked out really well and were loved by all, coeliac's and non-coeliacs alike.

Oat/Oatmeal Buttermilk Pancakes

Enough for 4 people

150gr porridge oats/gluten-free oats

500ml buttermilk

80gr plain flour/gluten-free flour

2 med eggs (3 med eggs if going gluten-free)

1/2 TB sugar

1 TB baking powder (gluten-free)

Scant ts salt

Method

When you get up mix the oats and the buttermilk.  It's good to let them soak for an hour or two but you'll get away with less.

Once the oats are softened, mix the dry ingredients together and then mix into the oats, along with the eggs.  Beat well to combine.

Heat a heavy frying pan or griddle over a lowish heat, too hot and they'll burn before they cook through, and grease well - I used vegetable oil and bit of kitchen roll.

Depending on the size you want pour somewhere from 1/3 to 3/4 of a ladeful of batter in.  The larger size gives you around a 10cm pancake, the smaller amount let me put three 6cm pancakes cooking in the same large frying pan.  Once in spread out with the ladle till about 8mm thick.  Cook until dry on top, around 2-3 minutes, but careful not to over do it.

Flip and give a couple more minutes.  They are then ready to serve.  I used two frying pans at once, to halve the cooking time, and kept warm in a 60 C oven inbetween.

I love them with maple syrup, and I imagine golden syrup would be gorgeous too, both of which would sit happily with some sliced banana.

Cheese Curds and Two Things To Do With Them - Poutine and Wisconsin Fried Cheese Curds

Poutine - the Canadian national dish of fresh cut fries, cheese curds and gravy - gained a soft spot in my heart when I lived in British Columbia for a few months back in my mid-20s. The combination of textures and flavours bathed in a meaty, salty gravy is comfort food at its finest, perfect after a day out snowboarding in -47 deg C when your body is yearning for calories.  With this recent cold spell I have been hankering after this heart attack on a plate but have been held back by the availability of cheese curds.  Whilst some people use mozzarella it just doesn't have the right texture, it's too soft and stringy and lacks the squeak of fresh cheddar curds which stand up to the gravy and chip heat far better.  Unlike in Canada though the option of buying them doesn't exist in the UK and so I looked around on the web to see if I could make them.  Whilst a little trickier than paneer making - the only cheese making I'd ever done - it looked bearable and I'm always happy to be in the kitchen learning something new.  When ebay showed rennet was both easy and cheap to get hold of the last obstacle was gone. 

As with anything cheese related the first stage was to coagulate the milk with my newly acquired rennet.  When making paneer, as you're probably aware, you add something acidic to milk and it curdles.  When I've done this you end up with lots of small particles in the milk which then come together when you strain them out and hang in muslin.  The first thing I noticed with rennet though was how the milk set into one huge lump, like a bowlful of soft tofu. To get this to something usable you have to first cut the curds then heat them up very gradually - 8 degrees over 30-40 minutes, a thermometer is a must.  This heating process seems to squeeze whey from the curds, moving them from the softest tofu to slightly rubbery lumps floating in a saucepanful of whey.  Once strained if you were making cheese this is where you'd start to salt it and press it into rounds, but for me - and you if you give it a go - this is when they were ready.

For a first attempt I was more than happy. It's a fairly involved process, obviously, but if you like being in the kitchen then it's not too much of a chore.  The poutine was a delight, the curds rich and with the tell-tale squeak on the teeth and the chips, using the thermometer again to get the saucepan of oil to the right temperature, crisp without and fluffy within.  Even the packet gravy (half chicken and half beef to mimic the traditional veal) didn't let it down. 

After making it I still had some curds left so turned to Google to see what other uses I could find for them.  There wasn't much out there but one thing that did pop up was fried cheese curds, specifically Wisconsin fried cheese curds.  I like niche recipes and you can't get much more niche than that.  I'm a big believer in battering and deep frying improving almost anything and here the bland curds and spicy coating are proof of that theory.  The curds stand up to the heat well leaving crisp nuggets with a delectable chew.  Another win.

Cheese Curds

Makes about 350gr (I think)

1.5 litres unhomogenized full fat milk (Sainsbury sell it)

NB unhomogneized milk is important as normal milk does not coagulate properly

2TB live yoghurt

Scant 1/4 ts rennet in 2 TB of water

1/2 ts salt.

Method

Warm the milk to 20C then add the yoghurt and leave for an hour.  This reduces the acidity (which I believe helps with the setting) and adds some flavour.

Warm the milk to 30C then add the rennet and leave to set, it should be fairly solid within 15 - 30 minutes.

Now you need to cut the curds, I used a palette knife and went for about 1.5cm squares.  You can see this in the first curd photo of the post, up there on the left.

The next stage is the trickiest, you need to gradually heat the milk to 40C over the course of 30-40 minutes, stirring occasionally with your hand (I found it pretty hard not to break the large lumps of curd when doing this).  Even using the lowest flame on the smallest gas ring the temperature still rises quicker than required so I put the saucepan in a larger saucepan of water to slow the heating down.  I still couldn't leave it on a small flame though and turned it on and off every couple of minutes to get a suitably slow rise.  The second curd photo up there on the right is halfway through the process and you can see the yellowish whey coming out.

Once you're at 40C the curds and whey will be properly separated so ladle out as much of the whey as you can (rumour has it it makes a fine buttermilk subsituture when baking but I just poured it down the sink) then drain the curds through muslin and leave over the sink for half an hour.

Sprinkle the salt on and mix through and your curds are ready to use.

Poutine

Per person

1 baking potato

75gr cheese curds

100-150ml gravy (I use 2 parts chicken Bisto Best and 1 parts beef Bisto Best)

Method

Cuts the chips to 1cm thick, I left the skins on but do as you please, then wash well and dry. 

Heat the oil to 120C then fry the chips for 7-8 minutes until tender and cooked through.

Remove from the oil then heat it to 190C before adding the par-cooked chips again, cooking till golden brown and crispy - about 3-4 minutes.

Wisconsin Fried Cheese Curds

200gr cheese curds

Batter

1 egg

50gr plain flour

1/4ts chili powder

Pinch dried thyme

1/4 ts garlic powder

1/4 ts white pepper

Scant 1/2 ts salt

3 TB milk

Coating

Flour

Method

Make the batter then dip the curds (break larger lumps down to 2cm odd) in it to coat.  Take the battered curds and cover well in flour then spread on a plate and put in freezer for 20 minutes.

Heat some oil to 190C and then deep-fry for 1-2 minutes until golden.

Enjoy, with your fingers and something cold to wash them down.

Breakfast Sausage and Sausage and Egg Non-McMuffins

Friends always found it strange that I could be so into my food yet love McDonalds.  To me it didn't seem strange as those muffins tasted damn good but others thought I must have some kind of food snobbery to go with my interest.  Over the years I've met a lot of food bloggers though and found it's far from uncommon for us to indulge in what some might think of as low-grade food, whether it's a McDonalds or talk of a Chicken Cottage within 10 minutes of eating at one of London's hottest new restaurant openings. 

At the end of the day though I think a lot of us who choose to write about food are just, deep-down, gluttons.  We plain and simply really enjoy eating. That may lead us, as in my case, to continually search the world's cuisines for something new and tasty but as long as we're eating we're pretty happy, even if it is mass-produced, salt & fat laden and from a huge corporation who lures kids into stores with free toys - all that is forgotten with the taste of porkiness & faint sage with each bite.

You may wonder why you would want to recreate fast food at home but I can think of three reasons:

 1) You don't have to go to McDonalds - maybe you don't live 100m from one like I do, maybe you do but you're too hungover to leave the house or maybe you just don't like the place and don't want to give them any money.

2) You get to have a runny yolk in your egg - as much as I love the McDonald's offering, moving from chalky to runny on the yolk can only be a good thing.

3) You can use the leftover patties to knock up biscuits with sausage gravy - if you haven't tried this dish then it's well worth it, especially if you want to eat your weekly fat content in the first meal of the day.  Just don't do it too often.

The following recipe is for the sausage, to turn it into a Sausage and Egg Non-McMuffin just buy English muffins, eggs and some cheese slices.  You don't have to cook the egg in a chef's ring, or wrap your finished non-McMuffin in a sheet of greaseproof paper, but why do things by halves?

Breakfast Sausage Recipe

Makes 6 patties

500gr pork mince

1 ts salt

3/4 ts black peppercorns

1/2 ts dried sage

1/2 ts dried thyme

1/2 ts chili flakes

1/8 of a nutmeg

1 ts sugar

Method

This couldn't be much simpler, just place everything bar the pork into a mortar and pestle it till the pepper is ground.

Mix into the pork until well combined.

Shape into 6 patties.  Grill or fry for 2-3 mins a side.

As I tend to eat 1 or 2 at a time I stack the rest with greaseproof paper between and freeze.  Obviously do this before cooking.