Happy Cooking Accidents

I started off looking through the How to Cook Everything app to find an easy dinner to make. I decided to look up arepas because my friend out west made some for breakfast recently. I was not able to enjoy her arepas, but she said when she comes to visit, she will make them for me. Anyway, surprisingly, I found a recipe in the Mark Bittman app. I was not excepting to find it, but there are recipes for almost everything.

Unfortunately, as per usual, I did not read the recipe carefully, and it turned out I started making deep fried corn fritters instead of arepas. The arepa recipe was a variation on the recipe I had found. I decided to work with what I had created, and morphed my meal into a combo fritter/corn pancake. I really try to avoid deep frying anything in my home.

My husband loved the meal. I served the pancakes with meatballs, salsa and raw veggies on the side. Even my notoriously picky children ate the corn pancakes, without syrup! My son tried the pancakes with the green bits (basil and coriander), but decided he liked the non-green ones. My daughter refused to eat the pancakes because there was stuff in them. She does not like things with things in them. Somehow she caved, took a bite, and she realized she actually liked them. Hooray!

My husband is convinced if I make these again I will never be able to reproduce the pleasure he experienced eating the corn pancakes. He said it would not matter if I used the exact same recipe, his expectations are already high, so nothing will match this initial surprise. I asked if I would have to wait some time for the memory to fade, and he said time would have no effect. This left me feeling down. Was he telling me never to make this meal again?

Apparently, he feels I should continue to strive to improve upon this meal. I suppose his sly way of saying to make this meal again.

SAVOURY CORN PANCAKES

Neutral oil, like grapeseed or corn, as needed

¾ cup cornmeal, the fresher the better

½ cup all‐purpose flour (I used a mix of whole wheat and all purpose)

2 teaspoons baking powder

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 cup grated cheese

¾ cup milk, plus more if needed (it ended up being over 1 cup)

1 large egg

2 cups corn kernels, preferably just stripped from the cobs, but thawed frozen is acceptable (I used the kernels from one large cob)

Chopped fresh herbs (optional)

Combine the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, cheese, and some salt and pepper in a large bowl. Beat the milk and egg together, then pour the mixture into the dry ingredients, add enough milk to make a batter the consistency of pancake batter. Stir in the corn. If you want to make "plain" pancakes, add the herbs after you have cooked a few pancakes without.

Melt some butter or oil in a frying pan. When the oil is hot enough, dropped two tablespoons worth of batter into the pan for each pancake. Cook as you would regular pancakes, flipping when they are golden.

Serve with salsa.

Oh, and this year's cherry tomatoes made a great Caprese salad with basil and fresh mozzarella cheese.

 

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