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Lemon Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce

17 Sep

How many pancake recipes does one person really need to have? If I were to nail things down to their very basic elements, maybe my answer would be that a person only needs one single pancake recipe, that recipe being this one, which never fails to produce the most perfect pancakes every single time. Then again, if you’re in the mood for a slightly more health-conscious pancake, a pancake fortified with multiple grains, no refined sugar, and no saturated fat, perhaps you’d prefer to only have on hand a recipe like this one, a multi-grain blueberry pancake that never fails to please. Would that be all? Does anyone really need anything else in the way of pancakes?

Having just made these unbelievably wonderful lemon pancakes, my answer would definitely have to be a resounding yes. Dear lord, yes. Intensely lemony, perfectly light, and punched up with the brightest blueberry sauce you can imagine, these pancakes are giving my previous standbys a run for their money.

Of course, these pancakes satisfy a different element of pancake worthiness. Whereas the pancakes I usually favor are a simple affair that are comprised of standard pantry and refrigerator staples, these pancakes are a slightly fancier endeavor. Loads of lemon zest, a good dose of yogurt, and fluffy egg whites make these pancakes a special treat, something with the taste characteristics of a lemony muffin, but with a heavenly lightness. Their front and center lemon flavor just begs to be paired with a fresh dose of berries, so I complied by topping everything off with a dead-simple berry sauce that brings out all the right notes of what just might be my new Saturday morning breakfast treat. These are pancakes, stepped up, and you definitely don’t want to miss out.

Last Year: Black Pepper Buttermilk Biscuits

Lemon Pancakes with Blueberry Sauce Recipe

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1 ½ teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon salt

¾ cup plain yogurt

1/3 cup milk

finely grated zest of 2 lemons

¼ cup freshly squeezed lemon juice

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted then cooled slightly

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 large egg, separated

1 large egg white

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In a large bowl, whisk together the yogurt, milk, lemon zest, lemon juice, melted butter,  vanilla, and 1 egg yolk. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, and gently whisk together until just barely combined.

Now would be a good time to start heating a cast iron skillet or nonstick skillet over low heat.

In a separate bowl, whisk the 2 egg whites together until they form soft peaks. Gently fold the egg whites into the batter, mixing until just combined.

In a skillet that has been preheated over low heat (if you have a well-seasoned cast iron skillet, you should not have to oil it prior to cooking the pancakes, but if your skillet tends to allow food to stick, very lightly oil the skillet with a tiny bit of vegetable oil), drop batter ¼-cup at a time, onto the skillet. Cook pancakes on one side until they have risen a bit and appear somewhat dry at the edges, with numerous deflating bubbles on the surface (this can take anywhere from 2-5 minutes for the first batch of pancakes). Flip pancakes over and cook for an additional 2-3 minutes, until golden brown.

Remove cooked pancakes to individual plates to be covered with berry sauce and eaten immediately, or place pancakes on a wire rack set on a baking sheet, then keep pancakes warm in a 200-degree oven until you are ready to serve them. In any case, eat the pancakes as soon as possible, for maximum deliciousness.

Blueberry Sauce

3 cups blueberries, fresh or frozen are both fine

1 teaspoon sugar

1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice

2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan and place over medium heat.  Cook, stirring constantly, until the fruit just softens, roughly five minutes. Transfer mixture to a blender or food processor and puree until about half of the mixture is blended into a liquid and the other half remains slightly chunky.  If you are not a fan of textured sauce, feel free to puree the sauce until it is completely smooth, or until your desired texture has been reached. I wanted a super textured sauce, so I hardly pureed this batch at all.

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Fruit Crisp Made on the Grill

27 Aug

The wait for hot summer weather in Portland can sometimes be interminable, but then, when the hot weather does finally hit, people seem to forget all the grousing and moaning that they previously took part in when it wasn’t hot enough for their liking, taking part instead in a great deal of grousing and moaning about how unbearably hot it is. When it comes to grousing and moaning, I take part, as most people do, in my fair share (though I generally reserve my woeful moaning for talk of baseball), but you will never, ever find me complaining that it is too hot in Portland. It rains nine months of the year here, and I can’t remember the last time I wasn’t forced to wear a sweater throughout the month of June. More than ¾ of my life is spent waiting for hot weather to arrive.

In addition to having an excuse to lay around in a hammock and read, hot weather also gives me a great excuse to try out the many, many things I’d like to attempt to cook on a grill. The standards of meat and vegetables are always a pleasure, but, as is my way, I have always wanted to try out a number of desserts on the grill. In the past, I have grilled fruit, sprinkled with a bit of brown sugar and drizzled with dots of vanilla, but I’ve always known that I wanted to do more with a grilled dessert.

This crisp is the perfect gateway for those of you who would like to audition a grilled dessert. I say this, because I am a person who wants to tackle more dessert-making on the grill, and the success of this crisp has made me only more eager to do so. The fruit, bubbling away contentedly, took on a deep and luscious flavor when contained in the grill for the better part of an hour, and the buttery oat topping seemed to almost melt into the fruit in parts, resulting in a crisp that was not so much actually crisp, but something even better. When slowly grilled, the fruit and the topping joined forces, settling into one another like a perfectly formed puzzle. It was a delightful discovery, and a wonderful introduction to what I hope will be a new world of desserts.

Last Year: Mimi’s Ginger Lemon Tea–good as a cool summer drink, a warm winter tonic, and a catch-all healer for anything and everything that ails you.

Grilled Fruit Crisp Recipe

Prepare an outdoor grill for indirect cooking (more on how to do that here). With the lid down, heat one side on high until the internal temperature of the grill reaches about 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Topping:

½ cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/3 cup rolled oats (not quick cooking)

¼ cup light brown sugar

¼ cup coarsely chopped pecans or almonds, or a mix of the two

pinch of cinnamon

pinch of salt

6 tablespoons cold butter, cut into pieces

Fruit:

6 cups fruit, sliced into roughly ½-inch pieces (I used strawberries, peaches, and blueberries which, obviously, I did not have to slice)

zest and juice of 1 lemon

1 tablespoon cornstarch

3 tablespoons light brown sugar

pinch of cinnamon

To make the topping, in a medium bowl combine the flour, oats, brown sugar, nuts, cinnamon, and salt. Stir together, then add the butter pieces and, using a pastry cutter or two knives, cut the butter into the flour mixture until the topping resembles coarse crumbs with a few smallish pea-sized bits of butter throughout. Refrigerate the topping while you prep the fruit.

In a medium bowl, combine all ingredients for the fruit filling and toss to combine. Transfer fruit to a heavy cast iron skillet (mine was a 12-inch skillet, but a 10-inch one would also work), spreading it out evenly. Spoon the topping mixture over the fruit as evenly as possible.

Cook the crisp on the unheated side of the grill, lid down, for 40 minutes, until the fruit is bubbling and the edges of the crisp topping have just started to turn golden. Be very careful when remove the skillet from the grill, as it will be incredibly hot. Allow the crisp to cool at least 15 minutes before serving.

Serve plain or with ice cream.

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Brown Sugar Nectarine Ice Cream

21 Aug

As a child, I thought that making ice cream at home was the type of thing only early American pioneers did. Ice cream came from the store, or an ice cream shop, and it was packaged in a square container that opened up like an envelope from the front. (I cannot be the only person here who remembers ice cream being packaged in this manner, can I? The flimsy box, the tight corners that held onto the ice cream and resisted being nudged out by a rounded scoop? In terms of ice cream package technology, whoever thought to ditch the box with square corners and develop a more rounded package was a genius.) When, in the book Farmer Boy, Almanzo Wilder and his siblings were left to their own devices after their parents left town for a week and deemed the children to be in charge of the farm, what was the first thing the kids did? They made ice cream (and cake, and candy…and then more cake and ice cream). They made so much ice cream and sweet treats, in fact, that they almost completely emptied out the family’s sugar barrel.

Reading about this intense feat of sugar consumption practically gave me a contact high. Making ice cream at home? For dinner? You can imagine how compelling I found this idea (I was going to add in the words “as a child,” but, let’s face it, I sort of like that idea now as well). It seemed so rugged, and yet also so simple. I want some ice cream, so I’ll just make some. It was like reading about the secrets behind a magic trick.

Obviously, as I got older and became in charge of my own kitchen and what went on in it, I found out that making homemade ice cream was just about as simple as eating homemade ice cream. Once I was gifted an ice cream maker, it was like having a license to print money. Somehow, it seems almost sneaky to make your own ice cream , like you’re totally getting away with doing something that’s meant to be handled only by the likes of professionals. It is also, I have found, slightly addictive. Not just the ice cream itself, I mean, but making the ice cream. Every time I find myself in possession of some interesting chocolate or chilies (or both, because, man have you ever had spicy chocolate ice cream? SO GOOD), or a nice supply of super ripe fruit, my mind immediately turns to thoughts of transforming those goods into a creamy batch of ice cream.

Last week, when it was 95 degrees in Portland, we had just gotten back from our annual trip to San Francisco, where we ate ice cream nearly every single day. This year we rented an apartment across the street from a great gelato place, which meant that we ended up spending an inordinate amount of time there, filling our bellies with gelato. We also, as we do every year, spent a great deal of time getting ice cream form Bi-Rite Creamery, as any ice cream loving person should know to do. I am a huge fan of their brown sugar ice cream with a ginger caramel swirl, so, once we got home to Portland and the heat left me no other choice but to make ice cream, I decided to test drive their brown sugar concept with some fresh nectarines. It’s usually my habit to plump up the flavor of fresh fruit with a bit of lemon juice, but, in the interest of trying something new, I subbed in some lime juice instead. What emerged after my tinkering was a creamy, bright, delightful ice cream with the strong flavor of nectarines balanced by a gentle undertone of sweetness. It was wonderful. It is wonderful. And I suggest you grab yourself an ice cream maker and find out for yourself.

Ice cream, previously: Fresh Ginger Ice Cream, Six Threes Ice Cream, Coconut Lime Frozen Yogurt and Chewy Ginger Cookie Sandwiches

Brown Sugar Nectarine Ice Cream Recipe

1 ¼ pounds pitted, diced ripe nectarines (about 3 large)

1/4 cup water

½ cup light brown sugar

3 egg yolks

1 cup heavy cream

½ cup milk

juice of ½ a lime

¼ teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In a medium saucepan, combine nectarines and water. Bring to a boil, cover, then allow to simmer over medium heat for 8-10 minutes, until the nectarines have broken down and released a great deal of their juices. Set aside to cool.

While the nectarines are cooking, combine brown sugar, egg yolks, and heavy cream in a medium saucepan. Whisk to combine, then heat mixture over medium heat, whisking constantly, until mixture thickens and reaches a temperature of around 170 degrees F. The mixture should coat the back of a spoon, leaving a clean trail when swiped with a finger. Remove from heat, whisk in milk, then place in the refrigerator to cool.

When both mixtures have cooled, combine them in a blender or food processor and blend on high speed until completely smooth and combined. Stir in lime juice and vanilla, then refrigerate until complete cooled, about 2 hours. Alternately, if you don’t want to wait, you can place the nectarine custard mixture in a thin, nonreactive metal bowl, place the metal bowl in larger bowl filled with mostly ice with a bit of water, and stir the mixture as the metal bowl rests in its ice bath. After about 10-15 minutes of careful stirring (being careful not to tip the custard bowl over into the ice water), the mixture will become quite cold.

Freeze mixture in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.

Makes just under 1 quart of ice cream.

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