So I’ve been trying to learn how to cook as part of the Big Move, and I find that I’m constantly being reminded of just how intricate a system the culinary arts are. Case in point:
I’ve been struggling with making pancakes on my little electric range for the past week, with mixed results. So far, they’ve all tasted decent, but I can not seem to get the color right, no matter how hard I try. I am probably one of the few people outside of a professional chef that would care this much about what color my pancakes are, but there you go.
Recently, as if by some cosmic coincidence, I came upon this blog entry by Sacha Chua, which I will summarily copy and paste here so we’re all on the same page:
use a teflon pan. heat pan. put very very little oil on the pan. pour batter. turn down heat so pancake (first bottomside) will brown evenly. When pancake (topside) starts to bubble, watch and flip pancake as soon as bubbles have burst and batter looks dry. pancake is cooked when it rises (thickens) You can check if the second face is done. If not, you may turn the heat up just a little bit. Remove pancake from pan. Turn up heat again for the next pancake. Use the thickest, flattest pan that you have so your pancakes will brown evenly.
So I tried it this morning, placing the power dial at about half and waiting with the proverbial bated breath at the kitchen counter. After nearly ten minutes the top of the pancake had still not bubbled (because I think half-power on an electric is only good for keeping your drink warm or something), so I turned up the heat a little more. When it finally started showing signs of bubbles (like, 3), I turned it over (because by then I had been standing there for almost 15 minutes) and discovered the pastiest looking pancake I have yet created. At this point, I left the kitchen and checked email for a few minutes. When I came back I checked the underside and found another pasty-looking pancake, albeit less pasty than the side currently on top. SO I tried turning it over one more time. Big, big mistake. It was newbie night at Olympic Heights, what can I say.
The pancake promptly collapsed into three separate pieces as soon as I tried to lift it (with a turner, not a fork, mind you).
At this point, I had pretty much chalked this particular attempt as a failure, so I just pulled the whole thing out, poured maple syrup on it, plopped a generous helping of fruit salad on the side, and hey presto! A really sad pancake breakfast.
Oh well.
I’m not completely certain what went wrong, but I do have some ideas: 1) I didn’t heat the pan long enough, 2) I made my batter too thick to properly use this trick, or 3) pancakes just hate me. Whatever. There’s no reason to be depressed for too long anyway. I’ve already resigned myself to having pancakes for breakfast every single day until I figure out how to do this properly, so there’s always tomorrow.