PATIENT PANCAKES
Behold how your retinas absorb an algorithmic feed of food. Every day. All day. Sailing the chaotic sea of cuisine, cake batter captivates curiosity. A cream of eggwhites known as meringue (muhhong as it sounds in Français) is swirled in a storm of sugar. The muhhong is gently folded into a mix of egg yolk and flour. Placed on a heated pan until fluffy.
Easy enough… or so it seemed. Disastrous attempts to recreate Japanese Pancakes haunted us for weeks. They were not fluffy enough. They were never fluffy enough… half fluffy, maybe less.
Fortunately, Utada Omakase, our Paris-based cuisine consultant, referred a recipe and a piece of advice.
The recipe: CLICK HERE
The piece of advice: Patience.
We learned the pancakes failed the fluffy test because of our lack of patience. The key to fluffy is Meringue. Hand made Meringue requires patience. Practicing patience with willpower, we witnessed the egg whites morph into various forms. Foam was the first form. For 30 minutes we whisked. We whisked until our forearms turned to jelly. We whisked until the foam transformed into cream.
Our early experiments with meringue never passed the foam phase. The cream phase seemed out of sight. With the addition of patience to this recipe, fluffy Japanese pancakes were no longer fantasy. Add a dash of patience when flipping these fluffy, delicate delights of deliciousness. As you can see we flipped too fast. Stay tuned for our next attempt.
Bon Appétit.