Vietnamese pancakes

I first tried these about ten years ago in the Vietnamese village of Hoi An, about halfway up the country, while travelling with my childhood friend Sinead. We accidentally spent a week in the village. Every second shop is a tailors, and we kept ordering more clothes every time we went to pick up our previous orders, postponing our onward travel. We had to buy extra suitcases, we got so much stuff made (it was very cheap to get clothes made). I have fond memories of having winter coats made for us, and trying these on in the 30+° heat!

The week in Hoi An was one of the highlights of the trip. It was just wall-to-wall craic, and we met so many brilliant people, both travellers like ourselves and locals.

We had these pancakes, which are a local speciality, in a WWF café, listening to Buena Vista Social Club (yes, Cuban music in Vietnam…). They were so good we went back a second night. I have never seen these in a western Vietnamese restaurant. I think the Vietnamese know hey are too good to export ;-) 

Vietnamese pancakes

I found this recipe in Rick Stein’s ‘far eastern odyssey’. He says this does four people, but I get four pancakes from this and two of us eat them.

For the pancakes

100g rice flour (I’ve used normal flour with no problem)

2 eggs (these are the one ingredient which cannot be substituted or omitted)

175 ml coconut milk (I’ve used full fat and low fat coconut milk with no problem. I’ve also used normal cows milk, and milk mixed with water, no problems)

½ teaspoon of ground turmeric

½ teaspoon of castor sugar (I have left this out on occasion)

½ teaspoon of salt

Whisk all the ingredients together until smooth, and leave this to the side for half an hour.  The batter is an alarming yellow colour – as you will see from the picture. When you’re ready to cook them, put a little oil in a pancake pan and add a little batter – enough to cover the pan. Cook on one side for about two minutes, flip, and cook on the second side for about one-to-one-and-a-half minutes, until they are a little browned.

For the filling

2 tablespoons of fish sauce

1 teaspoon of palm sugar (castor sugar is fine, or leave this out)

200g of pork fillet (if you’re not a fan of pork, use chicken)

150g of prawns

Mix the fish sauce with the sugar. Slice the pork into slivers, about the size of lardons. Put them into a bowl, and the prawns into another, and divide the fish sauce mixture between the two.  Leave them to marinade with the batter.  When you’re ready to cook them, stir fry the pork for one minute before adding the prawns and cooking the whole lot for another minute, until they are cooked through. Season well with a good dose of pepper.

Extras

You will also need some salad for the pancakes. I love some bean sprouts, a mix of herbs like basil, coriander, mint and a little flat-leaf parsley, and some normal salad leaves.

Make a dipping sauce for the pancakes by mixing two tablespoons of lime juice, two tablespoons of fish sauce, two tablespoons of water, one teaspoon of sugar, one tablespoon of finely grated fresh ginger, a finely chopped red chilli and a crushed clove of garlic. 

When you're ready to eat, fill your pancake with the stir-fried pork and prawns and the herby salady bean sprouts. Dip liberally into the sauce. 

Is there any dish that transports you back to an exotic location or reminds you of holidays? 

Pancakes stuffed with béchamel, mushroom, ham and cheese

A couple of weeks back, for Pancake day, I spotted this recipe in the Irish Times from Domini Kemp.

I’d tested the pancake recipe already (all in the name of research, I guarantee) for these spinach and ricotta ones I made for Pancake day. I doubled the pancake recipe again, but only used 65g butter this time. The pancakes turned out just as good, so you can cut a few calories and grams of fat. Not that this is going to do you any good in this recipe.

The double pancake batter got me 11 or so pancakes this time. I used eight of them to make this. You’ll need two pancakes per person. I supplemented them with a simple salad.

For the bechemel sauce, you'll need:
30g butter

30g flour

250ml semi skimmed milk

Seasoning

Start by getting your oven heated to 190 degrees.

On the stove (in a pot), make the bechamel sauce - melt the butter, add the flour and mix well. Cook for a minute to cook out the flour. Add the milk a dribble at a time and mix well to avoid lumps. Heat through until the sauce thickens and bubbles. This sauce needs to be thick enough to stay inside the pancake, so it needs to be quite solid. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Stir a good teaspoonful of mustard through the sauce. Chop or slice 250g mushrooms and add them to the sauce. They will cook a bit in the heat.

Take a slice of ham and lay it on the pancake. Add two dessertspoons of the sauce in a line down the centre of the pancake and sprinkle with a little cheese – I used grated gruyere. Roll up and place in a large oven proof dish. Repeat for the other seven pancakes.

I poured about 50ml of light cream over the rolled pancakes before sprinkling the rest of the 100g packet of grated cheese on top.

This goes into the oven for 30 minutes.

As it happens - pancake day!

Good evening all, 


Today, in Ireland and the UK, is pancake day. From what I can gather, the continentals don't especially eat pancakes today. The big pancake day for the Belgians is 2 February - le chandeleur. 
I'm going to try this recipe right now, letting the batter settle for an hour or so before making them up. I am going to stuff some of them with ricotta and spinach, cover with passata and a sprinkling of parmesan and bake in a hot oven for about 25 minutes. The remainder will be smothered in Nutella, sugar and lemon and whatever else takes my fancy. 
Pancake batter, from Saturday's Irish TImes. If the ricotta and spinach above doesn't grab your fancy, check out what Domini Kemp does with hers. 


50g melted butter
2 eggs
200ml milk
100g flour


Melt the butter in a frying pan. In a bowl, combine the rest of the ingredients with a little salt and add the melted butter. In the same pan, pour enough batter into the hot pan to cover it - fine is the key here. Cook for one minute on one side, flip it and cook for about 45 seconds on the other or until golden. 


I doubled this recipe and got 14 pancakes.