Sunshine Pancakes

 When it comes to tradition I am always a non conformist, with Shrove tuesday rapidly approaching us I devised a task to come up with an amazing alternative pancake recipe. I thought back to my days in New Zealand where I remembered having a sweetcorn fritter crossed with a savoury pancake, it was totally delicious, my alternative Pancake was born. I know that a lot of people are not necessarily pancake lovers and a savoury pancake would be a welcome change for most. I always associate Sweetcorn with summer time, bbq's, and mexican food, hence the name sunshine pancakes. The Pancake batter packs quite a punch, if you are not a chilli lover just leave them out.

 This was a total success without a shadow of a doubt, so much so that I converted my pancake hating husband to love them. In my Pancake recipe I place half a prawn on top of each one so that it cooks into the batter, if you do not like prawns you can place a couple of slices of chorizo instead, if you are vegetarian just cook the batter, the possibilities are endless.

You will need:
(for the batter)
200ml of whole milk
2 large free range eggs
150g of self raising flour
75g of maize flour or polenta
1 tsp of baking powder
2 tbsp of caster sugar
2 1/2 tsp of maldon sea salt (must be maldons, table salt is too harsh)

For the vegetables:
2 finely chopped fresh green jalapenos
1/2 a red pepper finely diced
1 small red onion finely chopped
2 fresh corn on the cob with the corn removed (see below image)
1 tbsp of chopped garlic
1 tsp of cumin powder
1 tsp of paprika
50g of butter
1 tsp of maldon sea salt
4 tbsp of chopped coriander
between 6-9 raw tiger prawns (depending on the size of your pancakes)

To remove the sweetcorn from the husks place a smaller bowl upside down inside of a larger bowl, prop the bottom of the corn onto the bowl and slice the sweetcorn off by running the knife down the side of the husk, the sweetcorn should fall into the bowl.
Melt the 50g of butter in a frying pan and fry the onions, pepper and the jalapenos until they are softened, add the paprika, cumin, chopped garlic and sweetcorn, season with a tsp of salt and cook on a low heat for five minutes. Remove the vegetables off the heat and stir in the coriander, allow this mixture to cool thoroughly. Meanwhile prepare the pancake batter, sift all of the dry ingredients into a bowl, whisk the eggs and milk together and add this to the dry ingredients, whisk until just combined but smooth. Add the cooled vegetable mixture to the pancake batter and mix until fully combined.
 Fry a couple of dollops of the batter to make up one pancake in a frying pan with a little melted butter. 
Place a prawn half (split lengthways) onto the top of the uncooked batter, when bubbles begin to appear on the surface flip the pancake, it should only take a few minutes either side. Serve with Sweet chilli sauce!

The ultimate Swedish pancake

Serves 6 people

Makes 20 pancakes

For the pancakes

You will need:

3 large eggs

600ml of whole milk

1 tsp of salt

1 tbsp of caster sugar

1 tsp of vanilla extract

2 tablespoons of melted butter

275g of plain flour sieved.

Add all of the wet ingredients into a bowl and add the flour, sugar and salt into the bowl a bit at a time. Whisk until smooth.

In a pancake pan or non stick frying pan add a small knob of butter and a ladle full of the batter, cook on a medium heat. Flip the pancake when the underside is golden. Cook the other side for a further minute. Repeat until the batter has gone.

Normally in Sweden we would fill our pancakes with whipped cream and jam, but the english half of me always sticks to golden syrup.