Welcome to another exciting adventure into my kitchen, thanks to Celia from Fig Jam and Lime Cordial. I was lucky enough to meet up with Celia for Sunday morning breakfast a couple of weeks ago and she brought me not one but two gifts. The first just tickled my fancy because I’ve been admiring these Chinese lanterns on her blog for a while now. Celia makes these by hand and they are gorgeous. [Skip to Sourdough Pancake Recipe]
Celia is also the queen of sourdough bread making and of making the most wonderful food in clay dishes. Imagine my surprise (and glee) when I pulled this baby from the gift bag! I haven’t been in top notch cooking mode for a week or more but I’ve been scouring recipes and my new dish will have lamb braised in beer with some bell pepper/capsicum. Watch this space.
When we were in Sydney, we met up with Charlie from Hotly Spiced and Tania from My Kitchen Stories at Downstairs Restaurant. I haven’t laughed so much in a long time. Charlie brought me the nicest salad hardware and honestly, nobody needed a new set more than I do.
Tania works for Lario’s Italian Wine and Produce and she found a beautiful balsamic vinegar there that she wanted to share with us. I’m over the moon trying to come up with ways to use it that don’t involve just swilling from the bottle into my mouth. Tania has written a brilliant article about how to buy balsamic vinegar that you shouldn’t miss.
We also caught up with Lorraine from Not Quite Nigella. Are you surprised that she brought me a vacuum sealed package of what looks like poo? No, me either. She comes across the most amazing food in her travels around the world.
Now I know that’s not poo because there are grapes and walnuts on the package. I’m going to have a glass of wine and crack this gem open soon. The ‘looks like poo’ came in a big bag of goodies that she’s picked up from everywhere.
Finally, in my kitchen were the most wonderful sourdough pancakes I’ve ever made. When you have sourdough starter you have a choice of pouring off all but 1/4 cup and adding new flour and filtered water OR taking a cup of that wonderful starter and making pancakes. That’s what I did today.
I got this recipe from Celia the sourdough queen and the only thing I do differently is to add a bit more flour than she uses. It could be that she’s got a bouncier starter than I do.
I will never ever toss out sourdough starter again. These pancakes were fantastic and I served them with sauteed apples drizzled with maple syrup. I froze the ones we didn’t eat so I’ll let you know how they are once I re-heat them.
- 1 cup sourdough starter
- 1¼ cups plain (all-purpose) flour
- 1 egg
- 1½ cups whole milk
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons butter, melted
- 1 teaspoon baking soda, sifted
- 1 tablespoon white sugar
- Whisk together the sourdough starter, milk and egg in a large mixing bowl until well combined.
- In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, sugar and sifted baking soda.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, whisking constantly to avoid lumps. Then stir in the melted butter and leave to rest for 30 minutes before cooking.
- Pour ½ cup of batter into a greased skillet heated to medium-high. When the edges start to dry, flip until brown on the bottom.
If you want to see all the other In My Kitchen posts, head over to Fig Jam and Lime Cordial and see the list on the side of her blog. The list keeps growing every month. Finally, Charlie wants you to know that he really likes sourdough pancakes too. What he doesn’t like is waiting to go to the dog park.
