When I was an adolescent I was told that those years would be the best years of my life. Teachers, my parents and old ladies at bus stops would say,
“Enjoy your life while you can, before you have responsibility and other obligations!
Clearly these people forgot the rigors of puberty; the acne, growing pains, mood swings, uncontrollable erections, unusually long showers, dealing with social cliques and most of all, being told what to do ALL THE TIME!
Do this. Do that. Do your homework. Do your chores. Not in the house. Not on the grass. Not with the good scissors. Don’t hit your sister. Take your brother with you. DON’T TAKE IT OUT IN PUBLIC! Being a kid was hard, and do you know what I learnt when I finally grew up and got a castle of my own? Being a grownup is FRIGGAN AWESOME!
I realised that the adults in my life while growing up lied, were so far removed from childhood that they just didn’t remember or were just downright boring. As an adult no one can tell me what do. I go to bed whenever I want. I don’t get carded at liquor stores or bars. There’s booze. There’s boobs! I haven’t lost the ability to play PlayStation. I can drive and I don’t have a curfew.
The best thing about being a grownup though is being able to eat whatever I want for dinner!
So fellow barbarians, throw convention out the window, drink straight from the carton and ask your significant other if it’s ok if you whip up a batch of The Culinary Barbarian’s newest recipe, Breakfast for Dinner; Sweet and Savoury Bacon Pancakes.
Ingredients:
Pancake Batter-
1 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
½ cup plain flour
½ cup self raising flour
1 pinch salt
1 tbsp sugar
Butter, for frying
For Savoury_
6 rashers streaky bacon
1 small onion, diced
For sweet-
2 strawberries
Vanilla bean ice-cream
Real maple syrup to serve
Method:
(Useful tips: Try to find a small, cheap, Teflon coated frypan. I got mine on sale for about $5 but they shouldn’t be any more than $15. Use a sauce ladle to pour your pancake batter. I find that it is the perfect measure. Rather than a spatula, I flip the pancakes with a silicon cake scraper: better control during the flip.)
- Turn the oven to 220°C. Line an oven tray with baking paper and arrange the bacon across the tray, overlapping slightly. Place directly into the oven.
- Sift the flours, sugar and salt into a mixing bowl. Pour in the milk and egg and whisk until smooth and there are no lumps.
- Check the bacon after about 10 minutes and drain off any excess bacon grease into a container and reserve the fat. Turn the bacon on the tray and return to the oven.
- Heat your small frypan on the smallest burner on the stove. Melt about 1 tsp of butter and turn the heat to low. Ladle in one pancake worth of batter, aiming for the centre of the pan.
- When the pancake begins to solidify around the edges and holes begin to appear on the top, it’s time to flip. Use a cake scraper to get under the pancake without letting the uncooked batter on top run and quickly turn. Leave for about 20 seconds and then gently shake the pan. When the pancake loosens from the pan and freely slides when shaken it is ready. Flip it onto a tray and keep warm. Repeat steps 4 and 5, 2 more times.
- Remove the finished bacon from the oven and drain the remaining grease.
- Spoon 2 tsp of bacon grease into the hot fry pan and sprinkle on about 1 tbsp of diced onion and sauté until translucent. Ladle in the pancake batter over the onion and place 2 strips of bacon over the batter. As in step 5, when the pancake solidifies around the edges and bubble holes begin to form, flip the pancake. After about 20 seconds, shake the pan and when it begins to slide remove from the pan. Repeat with the remaining batter, onion and bacon.
- To serve, stack the sweet pancakes, arrange with sliced strawberries and ice-cream. Make an adjacent stack of savoury pancakes and drizzle the lot with real maple syrup.
