Twice last week I had the good fortune of running across a recipe that I couldn’t wait to try and, more remarkably, I actually had all of the necessary ingredients for each recipe on hand and ready to roll. My luck continued from there, as both recipes turned out every bit as good as I had hoped and will undoubtedly work their way into my repertoire.
The first was a recipe for gigante beans with lemon and fennel from the site, 101 cookbooks. If you read my blog regularly, it’s probably no surprise that a recipe involving fennel and lemon caught my eye–they’re a couple of my favorite ingredients. So that, plus the fact that I had just gotten a bug up my butt to clean the cupboard and wound up cooking off nearly every dried legume in the house and needed to find something to do with the enormous pot of gigante beans, propelled me to make the dish immediately. It was every bit as good as the beautiful photos suggest. You should definitely try them.
The second recipe, and the one we’re actually going to talk about today, was for savory pea and scallion pancakes. After cleaning out the cupboard, I was still on a bit of a cleaning binge and started weeding through old magazines which. Needless to say, I spent the next hour sprawled out on the living room floor leafing through back issues of Bon Appétit. I came across a spring pea feature and immediately zeroed in on these pancakes. They were light golden with bright green pea polka dots and a smattering of green onions scattered over the top. They looked tender, delicious, and exactly like what I wanted to eat at that precise moment. I scanned the recipe, raided the fridge, and, within 10 minutes, was having a lovely little lunch. Like I said, good fortune.
These pancakes get most of their substance from cottage cheese and eggs which, together, yield a very tender, flavorful pancake. To make the batter, just buzz cottage cheese and eggs with a pinch of salt and a little flour until smooth. Stir in plenty of green pea and a few sliced scallions.
Pour the batter onto a buttered griddle and let the cakes slowly become golden with brown speckles. Stack them up on a warm plate and from there, it’s all up to you. The original recipe suggested drizzling melted butter over a stack of the pancakes–that felt a little over the top for me (yes, I realize I regularly talk about eating dessert for breakfast so this may sound a bit hypocritical). I ate my pea pancakes with softly scrambled eggs for breakfast, with a side of roasted asparagus for lunch, with a roasted chicken thigh for dinner, and even a few straight from the refrigerator at midnight. All were enjoyed. I imagine they’d be just as excellent if you made them miniature and topped them with smoked salmon and served them as an hors d’oeuvre or for brunch with a fried egg and a piece of ham smooshed between.
And I imagine I’ll find out, sooner rather than later. I’m hooked.
- 1 c. Cottage Cheese
- 3 Eggs
- ½ tsp. Kosher Salt
- ¼ c. All-Purpose Flour
- 2 Tbsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- 1 c. frozen Peas, thawed
- about 8 Scallions, white and light green parts thinly sliced, divided
- 1-2 Tbsp. Butter, for cooking the pancakes
- Place the cottage cheese, eggs, salt, flour, and oil in a blender and process until smooth (Or you can place these ingredients in a medium bowl and blend with an immersion blender--that's what I did). Stir in the peas and half of the sliced scallions.
- Place a non-stick griddle over medium heat and melt a little pat of butter. Once the griddle is hot, pour out 4 pancakes. Each pancake should be a scant ¼ c. of batter and 3-4 inch across. Cook until the tops begin to bubble, 3-4 minutes. Flip and cook until the other side has browned and the centers are cooked through, another 2-3 minutes. Transfer to a warm plate, sprinkle with a few of the remaining scallions, and serve.
- If you are cooking off the whole bowl of batter, keep the pancakes in a warm oven, loosely tented with foil, while you cook the rest. Any leftover batter keeps well in the refrigerator for several days--you may need to stir in a Tbsp. of milk to loosen the mixture before using.
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- Sweet Corn & Cornmeal Buttermilk Biscuits
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- Zucchini Cakes with Smoked Trout
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