Thursday 29 March 2012

Orange-liqueur Pancakes

"Orange-liqueur pancakes", you might be thinking, "What a deliciously exotic affair!".

 This is what we'll get to.

Sadly, it is no such thing. Orange liqueur might sound mysteriously tantalising to these our Bengali (and Indian) ears, but it's really a sharper, more liquid sweet achaar, made from an unusual fruit. And the pancake, foreign though it may sound, is a variant of the Indian omlette we've gobbled all our lives.

Well, perhaps not the vegetarians among us.

Anyway, this lovely, glorious pancake: It's ideal for breakfast, but you won't find me dissuading you from eating it at lunch on a work-from-home day, because that is precisely what I did. You can even see the blazing afternoon sun glittering on the honey. It is exhausting to cook in the heat, of course, but the yummyness of the dish more than makes up for the twenty minutes in the kitchen.

 This is the home-made orange liqueur. If everybody is good and I find the lost pictures, I shall post it's how-to soon.

 For one, take a cup of flour, add a pinch of baking powder, two tablespoons of milk, and a quarter teaspoon salt. Break in a couple of eggs. In deference to my health, I've broken one. Now, pour about five tablespoons of orange liqueur in.

 There! Isn't it pretty?

 Whisk it well. It's in your own interest, you know.

 Grease a griddle. Then pour a small amount of the well-whisked batter on it. Flip it a couple of time. Keep the oil handy, should you need to add more along the circumference of the pancake. 

 Aaaaaand, voila! Pancakes! In deference, again, to my wilting delicacy, I have used very little oil, or these would be like lovely, fluffy, solid phulkas/pooris, not flat like this. Oh well. We win some, we lose some.

After such careful consideration for my constitution re. eggs and oil, I proceeded to lather the pancakes with butter, and pour honey (or maple syrup) over them. After all, and I may have made this point before, you win some, you lose some.

 And, a most satisfying, delicious confluence of flavours, that is the orange-liqueur pancake brunch. Bless my original ideas. They serve me spectacularly well.

Usually.