Sue Msallem - Account Manager

Sue’s Green Pancakes with Lime Butter

I discovered the magic of Green Pancakes with lime butter a decade ago. The UK was going crazy about a guy called Ottolenghi, and his recipes with obscenely long ingredient lists were sending the Guardian comments section into a frenzy. I jumped on the bandwagon too, snapping up a copy of his veg-heavy cookbook Plenty. This recipe caught my eye because it sounded like something out of a Dr Seuss book, but it’s the ingredients that captured my heart; lime, chilli, spinach, butter.

Ingredients

For the lime butter (prep this the night before if possible)
100g unsalted butter, at room temperature
Zest 1 lime plus 2 tbsp lime juice
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground pepper
1 tbsp coriander leaves, picked
½ garlic clove, finely chopped
½ tsp chilli flakes
For the pancakes
110g self-raising flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1 egg
50g unsalted butter, melted
½ tsp salt
½ tsp ground cumin
150ml milk
10 spring onions, finely sliced
2 green chillies, finely sliced
250g baby spinach
1 egg white
Olive oil, for frying

Method

  • First, make the lime butter.
  • Put the butter in a medium-sized bowl and beat with a wooden spoon until it turns soft and creamy.
  • Stir in the remaining ingredients.
  • Tip everything out on to a sheet of clingfilm or baking parchment and roll into a sausage shape.
  • Twist the ends to seal, then chill until firm. The recipe makes more than you need, but that’s not an issue – use the leftovers to slather over a jacket potato.
  • For the pancake batter, put the flour, baking powder, egg, butter, salt, cumin and milk in a mixing bowl, and whisk until smooth.
  • Add the onion and chilli to the batter.
  • Put the spinach in a pan with a splash of water, cook until wilted, drain, squeeze dry, then roughly chop and add to the batter.
  • Whisk the egg white to soft peaks and carefully fold it in to the batter.
  • Pour a little oil into a frying pan and place on medium-high heat.
  • For each pancake, ladle two to three tablespoons of batter into the pan and gently press the mix into a disc shape.
  • You should get smallish pancakes, about 7cm in diameter and 1cm thick.
  • Cook for a minute on each side, until a nice golden-green colour.
  • Transfer to a paper towel and repeat, adding oil as needed, until all the mixture is used up.
  • Keep the cooked pancakes warm.
  • To serve, pile up as many pancakes as you can handle and place a generous slice of lime butter on top to melt.
  • Serve with some salad leaves and, if you’re very hungry, an optional fried egg on top!

 

Recipe and method (very slightly adapted) is from Ottolenghi’s Plenty