for something happier

I made a thing. It was a good thing. It was something I had never made before but I will make it again.

The most recent issue of "Real Simple" had a recipe I wanted to try (as silly in some ways as the magazine is - and yes, for me, it is silly, because it's clearly aimed at people making twice what I do, or at least willing to spend more than I am, for a lot of things, and also assumes the married-with-young-children-at-home-working-mom model - it does have some good recipes)

It was for what it called Japanese cabbage pancake. I make no claims to authenticity as I know next to nothing about real Japanese cuisine other than to be sure to indicate NO MISO very strongly if I am going to be eating it (I am seriously allergic to miso)

anyway. I saw the recipe and thought "looks interesting" especially in light of the scallion-pancake experiment I tried a couple weeks back (good, but awfully fiddly to do, and I can't roll them thin enough)

This, however, you just mix the stuff up and dump it in a hot oiled pan, no rolling out. And it has cabbage, so is probably more nutritious (Among other things, cabbage is rich in Vitamin C, which is why German and Polish peasants didn't get scurvy). I just used a bag of "angel hair slaw" cabbage from the store, but if you have homegrown cabbage and a shredder that might be better; my cabbage seemed to have a lot of white and not a lot of green in it.



The pancakes:

4 large eggs, beaten
1/2 tsp grated fresh ginger (or comparable amount dry, which is what I used)
1 Tablespoon temari (I used Coconut aminos - less salty)
3/4 cup flour
 Mix those things up
add
4 cups shredded cabbage
the cut-up white parts of 3-4 green onions (save the green part - you slice them up for a garnish)

Mix everything.

Heat 2 Tablespoons oil (I used corn oil, recipe calls for canola) in a large non-stick skillet over medium. When it's hot, dump in the batter, and flatten the batter with a spatula to make a pancake shape. It will be thicker than normal pancakes.

Cover and cook for about 8 minutes. Flip it over. At this point I poured maybe 1/8 cup water over the top to make some steam because the pancake looked hard and crispy and my teeth don't like hard crispy things any more. The steam softened the crust up nicely.

I cooked it covered, but the recipe says uncovered for 5 minutes to cook the second side. Plate it up and cut into wedges.

There are two sauces to serve with it, I do not think it would be quite so good without them.

Sauce 1:
1/4 cup mayonnaise plus 1 teaspoon sriracha sauce (plus a little water if needed)

Sauce 2:
1/4 cup ketchup plus 1 Tablespoon temari (coconut aminos) and 1 Tablespoon Worcestershire.

You can either drizzle the sauces on the whole thing before cutting (if you are feeding several people and it will get eaten up) or dribble them (and add a few green bits of the onion) on each wedge before you eat it, which I did.

It was very good. The sort of thing you want to keep eating ("Moreish") and I suppose it's fairly good for you - lightly cooked cabbage and onion, eggs, and a little flour are really all that's in it.

I ate half and put half away; I could see this being good, cold, for snacks or also taking a wedge or two in my lunch.

DEFINITELY something I will make again, because it's good and it's another way to get a vegetable I probably don't eat often enough (fresh green cabbage).