Wednesday, also called Pancake Day. Traditionally, many families, anticipating the upcoming fast, took Shrove Tuesday as their last opportunity to cook with lovely things like eggs and sugar and butter. Although my family didn’t fast, my mom always made these crêpe-like pancakes come Shrove Tuesday. They’re quite thin and crisp at the edges. You’ve got to flip them delicately, with a deft flick of your wrist. My mom once tossed one so high that it stuck to the ceiling.
The pancakes take some time at the stove, but the process is satisfying – you’ll find yourself getting better at flipping with each one. By the end, you’ll have quite a stack. My mom used to serve them sprinkled with sugar and Jif lemon juice from a squeezy bottle shaped like the fruit. I prefer to eat mine drizzled with maple syrup (especially the bourbony kind) and sprinkled with crumbled chilli, with some salty, floppy bacon on the side. I love to stack them up and cut them into wedges to serve them, so you are eating twenty-four layers in each bite.
serves 4 (makes 24 pancakes)
FOR THE BATTER
225g plain flour
Sea salt
4 large eggs
400ml whole milk
50g unsalted butter, melted
FOR THE PAN CAKES
100g unsalted butter, melted, plus a knob of butter for finishing
Extra virgin olive oil
12 slices bacon
Maple syrup
Dried pequin chillies or red pepper flakes
Make the batter: Sift the flour into a large mixing bowl and stir in 2 pinches of salt. Make a well in the centre of the flour and crack the eggs into it, then slowly but steadily whisk in the milk and 150ml water (start whisking from the centre, and you won’t get lumps) until you have a smooth, liquidy batter. Whisk in the 50g of melted butter.
Make the pancakes: Heat a 20cm non-stick pan over high heat for 2 minutes, so it gets nice and hot. Take the pan off the heat and spoon in a little melted butter, a little less than a teaspoon, swirling it around the pan. Then, still off the heat, pour in just enough batter to coat the pan in a thin, almost translucent layer – a generous 2 tablespoons – quickly swirling to disperse the batter evenly (a few bare spots are okay). Return the pan to the heat and cook the pancake, without messing with it, just until the edges begin to brown and lift away from the pan, about 30 seconds. Firmly but carefully shake the pan and, with a deft flick of your wrist, flip the pancake. (You can also use a spatula to lift an edge of the pancake and flip it with your fingers.) Cook it on the second side for 30 seconds, or until both sides are splotched with light golden brown. Transfer it to a plate. Continue cooking the pancakes, stirring the batter and adding a scant teaspoon of the melted butter to the pan between each one, and stacking the pancakes on the plate as you go. They’ll keep each other warm until you finish, though it helps to keep the plate in a warm oven.
Pour a few glugs of olive oil into a large pan and set it over high heat. Once the oil begins to smoke, add 4 slices of the bacon. After a minute or so, add the rest (or work in batches to avoid crowding the pan). Cook until the slices are slightly crispy and brown at the edges but still a bit floppy, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer the bacon to paper towels to drain.
Drizzle the pancake stack with maple syrup, top with a knob of butter, broken up into little pieces, and crumble on as many chillies as you’d like. Serve cut into wedges, with the bacon on the side.
My mom isn’t good at cooking much, but she makes the best fried egg sandwich. She gets the egg really crispy and golden around the edges, and now that’s how I cook mine. The key is to get your pan and oil nice and hot, so that when the egg hits the hot fat, it sizzles and spits. I sprinkle the setting white and gleaming yolk with Maldon salt, crushed between my fingers. I like my eggs spicy, so they also get some crumbled pequin chilli. I can’t stand snotty whites – there’s nothing worse – so I’ll often cover the pan for a few seconds as the egg fries, or baste it with hot fat.
I love a fried egg on toasted crusty bread, perhaps with bacon that’s a little crisp but still floppy (I find that when bacon or pancetta is very crispy, you can’t taste the pork). And I love a fried egg on bubble and squeak, the yolk spilling over the top with a poke from your fork.
A lot of people like to eat two eggs at a sitting. I like to eat one. One is perfect.
SQUASH AND PANCETTA TOAST S WITH FRIED EGGS
Right before the Pig opened, I was working eighteen hours a day with my sous-chef and a line cook, trying to get everything ready. For a week, we operated on four hours of sleep a night and practically nothing to eat. We were so busy we didn’t notice. This is what I cooked for our first real meal, which I guess you’d call breakfast. There’s sweetness from the squash, heat from the chilli, sweet-and-salty from the pancetta, and creamy relief from the egg. I like to scoop a big hunk of squash, pop it onto the toast, and smoosh it down, leaving some smooth and some with a little texture.
serves 4
2 medium garlic cloves, smashed and peeled
2 heaped tablespoons marjoram leaves
4 teaspoons coriander seeds, toasted and ground
(see Spices, here)
100ml plus 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
Maldon or another flaky sea salt
8 or so dried pequin chillies or pinches of red pepper flakes
One 675g butternut squash, halved lengthwise and seeds scooped out
8 thin slices pancetta
4 large eggs
4 Bruschetta (see Toast and Bruschetta, here)
Preheat the oven to 230°C/450°F/gas 8.
Chop the garlic with the marjoram until you have a very fine, well-blended mixture. Combine this mixture with the ground coriander, 100ml of the olive oil, and 1 tablespoon salt in a large mixing bowl. Crumble in 5 of the chillies and stir well.
Put the squash, one half at a time, into the bowl and use your hands to coat it all over with the oil and seasonings. Put the halves cut sides up in a baking dish and drizzle them with any oil left in the bowl. Pour 100ml water around the squash, cover the dish tightly with two layers of foil, and pop it into the oven. Roast the squash until you can slide a knife into the thickest part of the flesh without resistance, about 45 minutes. Remove the foil, flip the squash halves so the cut sides face down, and roast for about 10 minutes more, until the cut sides are just a bit brown. Set the dish aside in a warm place.
Pour the remaining 3 tablespoons olive oil into a medium non-stick pan and set it over high heat. Once the oil begins to smoke,
