Griddle cakes

Pancakes... Flapjacks... Flap cakes... Breakfast cakes... Hot cakes... Johnny cakes... Fried bread...
And the list just goes on for what you call griddle cakes. It just depends on which part of the world you are from. Here, they are called hot cakes or pancakes. Normally they are served for breakfast with a dob of butter, tablespoon or spoons of preserves and lots of maple syrup. For some they accompany it with sausages and eggs too.

Last Christmas, I was up early and prepared breakfast for everyone. I remembered my mom buying a box of pancake mix. So to please her, I though of making her a batch. However, the mix couldn't be found. It made me think where it could have went since I never saw or hear anyone at home make some in the past weeks.

Instead of wondering more and trying to figure out the mystery, I threw in a couple of available ingredients and viola, home-made pancakes from scratch. At least, I don't have to have hungry angry household members. Probably I will be making a batch again soon....

Griddle cakes

The Ingredients:
1 cup sifted all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoon sugar
1 egg
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons melted butter or margarine

Cooking Procedure:
Sift all the dry ingredients together in a bowl. Beat egg. Add milk and butter until all mixed well. Pour into dry ingredients; beat until combined making the batter still lumpy. Heat a skillet or griddle. To test if it is hot enough, drop a little water and it should roll off in drops. Use about 1/4 cup batter for each griddle cake. Cook until bubbles for on surface and edges become dry. Turn; cook 2 minutes longer, or until nicely browned on the underside. Serve with butter, maple syrup, jams and or preserves.

Aligue Fried Rice

Everyone at home loves seafood and crab is one of the most after crustacean, most specially the ones that are rich with eggs or roe or what we call aligue. Others call aligue as "mustard" or "crab fat" because of it's yellowish color and the terribly rich in cholesterol. There are local grocers and food markets that sells jars or cans of this succulent treat and is readily available all year round. There are a couple of recipes that call for aligue, such as aligue pasta or aligue sauce to be paired off with slices of meat. So incase, there is a craving for aligue, one can easily grab one from the stores.

Having a couple of left over crabs, it was not enough for crab cakes. So I removed the excess roe and crab meat and threw in day old rice and mixed vegetables. So everyone had a chance at home to have a share (specially in the cholesterol). :D

The Ingredients:

2/3 cup cooked aligue and crab meat

4 cups day-old rice

1 tbsp. oil

2 tbsps. minced garlic

3 tbsps. minced white onion plus 1 tbsp. minced white onion

1/2 cup mixed vegetables (corn, carrots and peas; may be replaced with just corn and carrots or with other available combinations)

2 tbsps. oyster sauce mixed with 1-2 tbsps. water

1 scrambled egg, sliced into strips

ground pepper to taste

Cooking Procedure:

In a bowl, flake aligue and crab meat. Set this aside.

In a separate bowl, loosen the day-old rice from clumps. This would allow even distribution of the oyster sauce and other ingredients.

In a wok, dry fry the 1 tbsp. onions until it becomes dark in color and toasted. Set this aside. Pour in the oil and saute garlic and onions. Do not over cook the garlic else ti may become bitter. Add in the crab and saute until heated through. Try not to over heat because the meat may become too dry and tough. Add the rice and mix well.

Pour in the oyster sauce evenly over the rice. Season with ground pepper. Mix well to distribute the sauce evenly. Add in the vegetables and continue to stir until the vegetables are heated through and oyster sauce is evenly distributed.

Once done, transfer in a container and top with the scrambled eggs and toasted onions.

My Notes:

When ever my mom used to make fried rice, she would mix the day old rice with soy sauce or left over adobo sauce.

Free Rice

I know that this blog is a collection of treasures in my kitchen but I couldn't miss this opportunity to share this with you.

I stumbled upon Free Rice, a site that not only donates free rice but also helps one's vocabulary by playing the online game. The player receives a word and s/he tries to choose the correct word that best describes the word in question. For each correct answer, 20 grains of rice is donated by the advertiser on the bottom of the page. If you get 10 correct answers, you have contributed 200 grains of rice. The UN World Food Program distributes this to deserving families all over the worlds.

The site does not earn anything from this generous gesture.

Why not give it a chance to not only donate rice but also be able improve your vocabulary.