For most of my life I’d been dead set against instant just-add-water pancake mix. My wife and son Max had me see the light, after all who wants to store part of an egg when you need to make only one pancake. So I started to do what I usually do, see what I could use a new ingredient to do and stretch its possibilities.
In the late summer we now make fried green tomatoes with pancake batter and cornmeal, which is so much more easy and fun. But it’s spring, with none in sight, so I dug around in my fridge until I found…sauerkraut. I was surprised by how good they were, and came up with the perfect condiment using a stellar verde hot sauce from our friends at Primo’s Peppers.
Southern culture is very stealth German (chicken fried steak is schnitzel for example), so it ended up being a great fit in more ways than one.
Mix together the ingredients for the sauce and refrigerate.
In a skillet heat 1/4" of oil over medium high heat.
Mix the dry ingredients together with the sauerkraut, adding water if necessary to obtain a thick batter
Portion out heaping 1/4 cup portions of the batter, and flatten into cakes in the skillet, frying each side until crisp, 3-4 minutes. Add oil as necessary to keep 1/4" in the pan. Drain on paper towels on a wire rack, and serve while still hot.
Recipe Note
Variations & Ideas
Keep the pancake mix but play with the spices and ingredients, try:
Ground juniper, potato and onion shredded and squeezed dry, and sauerkraut, fry in duck or goose fat and serve with a mustard cream sauce
sub finely chopped kimchi for sauerkraut, cornmeal, scallion, frozen corn, Noga, fry in oil and serve with shoyu, vinegar, and sesame
caraway, grated dill pickle, sauerkraut, rye breadcrumbs, fry in chicken fat and/or butter and serve with thousand island dressing
grated yamaimo, chopped hotdogs, Vadouvan, sauerkraut, fry in oil and serve with curry ketchup and mayonnaise
• When green tomatoes are in season, Mix pancake batter and cornmeal as above and add water to form a thin batter. Slice tomatoes 1/2" thick and cover each side with Bluegrass and a bit of salt. Dip the slices in the batter and fry as above.
• Make the batter as above and use to coat slices of chilled and set polenta. When fried the crust protects the delicate curd of the polenta, which becomes creamy. Polenta can be easily made in a pressure cooker and the sky's the limit when it comes to spices, both in the polenta and in the batter. Try Luberon!
