Winter polenta pancakes
Ingredients:
- tomatoes
- 50g garlic (about 10 cloves)
- salt
- olive oil
- various mushrooms
- 20 twists of black pepper
- mozzarella
- 20g butter
- 70g polenta
- 65g flour
- 1/4 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- 160g buttermilk/kefir
- 1 egg
- 70g corn kernels (fresh or frozen)
Methods:
- Preheat the oven to 180C.
- Place tomatoes onto a baking tray - leave small ones whole and cut the bigger ones to match the size. Peel the garlic and add whole cloves to the tomatoes. Add salt and olive oil, mix everything and arrange into a single layer. Bake in the oven until tomato skins just start to blacken.
- Heat olive oil in a large frying pan. Chop mushrooms and fry until golden on all sides. Add black pepper.
- Shred the mozzarella.
- Melt the butter and let it cool down a bit.
- Mix all the dry ingredients for the pancakes (polenta, flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and sugar).
- Separately whisk together all the wet ingredients for the pancakes (buttermilk/kefir, egg, corn kernels and melted butter).
- Pre-heat a non-stick pan. When you are ready to start frying, stir the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined. Do not overmix. Spoon small dollops of batter on a hot pan. They will expand, so do keep them small and spaced out. Flip as soon as the bottom sides are brown, while the top is still liquid.
- Meanwhile, take the tomatoes out of the oven and handblender the contents of the baking tray into a sauce.
- Serve pancakes with fried mushrooms, tomato sauce and shredded mozzarella.
Inspired by: Epicurious