Pancakes

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santaman2000

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Jan 15, 2011
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I manage a frying pan for crepes, but I make a mess of pancakes in it. The girdle's flat, excellent for all kinds of flatbreads, from tortillas to naan, oatcakes to tattie scones and bannocks.......

A frying pan can be more difficult to get the turner (spatula) over the deeper side, but a proper frying pan has a flat bottom; it's really just a griddle with high sides.

2885857
 

santaman2000

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Jan 15, 2011
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.....The grill is the thing we make toast under, I think you might call it a broiler ?
We cook under the grill, not on top of it.....that's just barbecuing....

Yeah the bit you mention is what we call the broiler.

Outdoor grilling in any sort of "BBQ" is quick cooking on some sort of a wire rack. Gas, electric, charcoal.
So, to "grill" something, the heat comes from below.
BBQ takes hours with rubs and/or wet mops, fruit-wood smoke and relatively low (275F) temps.
For the desired tenderizing, not a technique that can be rushed at all. My standard do-all is 3 hours.

Who was the fool that claimed we all spoke the same language? Rubbish........

Yep. BBQ isn't of English origin. It's from a Taino word (Barbacoa) and it requires smoke (although it really doesn't require either rubs or sauces; the smoke alone is the defining factor) The smoke is the most important seasoning (especially stronger smoke such as mesquite or hickory) Without said smoke you're just grilling (whether it's outdoors or not) That said, Mary's right about the direction the heat comes from making no real difference to the end product.
 
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Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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Yup. Food and fire don't go together in BBQ. I did it all in the kitchen oven one very windy night but no smoke.
Not 1/2 as good.

Consider your average domestic 2-burner home gas BBQ/grill.
Consider a gusty wind.
Consider finding your appliance tossed 15M across the front grass, up against the neighbor's vehicle.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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We'd just smoke that. Lot of fish done that way, but we do venison, duck, pheasant, etc., as well.
Regular feast in Galgael when the smoker's running. The meat eaters claim it's better than any bbq.

Santaman2000, I have two old cast iron frying pans with that kind of shape, but with hoop handles. They're known as Gypsy pans. I use them for camp cooking. One is kept for meat when I'm feeding other folks. The other is kept vegetarian happy.
They look more like this,
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Cast-Iron-Gypsy-Swing-Skillet-Frying-Pan/332299252940

s-l1600.jpg


My crepe pan is a shallow wide single handled one.
I don't bother with a 'frying' pan these days, and just use the wide saute pan that's at the back of the cooker in the pancake photo. Absolutely brilliant :D

M
 

Robson Valley

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I have found that apple wood smoke for the first hour of 275F for 3 hours total is as good as tough cuts of meat need to be.
That is BBQ. There is and never was any intention to spoil top grade, tender meats in this way. Lamb shanks and side ribs could not be bettered.
Pancakes still fit the bill.
 

Janne

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There are two explanations for the BBQ origins (I have heard of)
1: Bucanners in Haiti that BBQ:ed the plentiful pigs and sold to ships
2: Jamaican origin, what they today call 'Jerking'. Marinate, slow cook in covered BBQ's over aromatic woods, using indirect heat.

The Indeginous people, Taino or Caribs, had neither pigs, cows or any large mammals. Nor chicken.
They had fish, shell fish, small mammals, Iguanas. None need slow cooking to be palatable.

Doing flour based food on a flat hot surface should be researched. Must be a Paleo skill. Done in all cultures.

We were given by a well meaning friend a mix for 'Swedish Pancakes".
The ingredient list was pretty long. Tasted awful.
 
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Robson Valley

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I think the paleo part might go back as far as (accidentally spilling) "parching grain" on hot rocks by the fire.
That has to be more than 12,000 yrs old. Burnt grain has been identified.
I have all sorts of slabs of local slate that I could use over an element on my stove but tedious is hardly the word to use.
How do you collect the heated grains without getting burnt, yourself?

I think you're looking at techniques for preparing starch based foods, not just grains.
Locally (Canadian interior) , that was lilypad root. I have a few ethnobotanical reference books back at home
that I can check at week's end.

Parching probably works only with Group I or Group II wheats, not the modern bread wheats
which came along after the advent of simple stone milling. Other ancient grains (barley?) might be worth a try.
Wetted, then heated to dryness with some Maillard browning. Just keep the grain dry and it preserves for millenia. Mill and prepare as needed.
 

Toddy

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Jan 21, 2005
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European (and I include the British Isles in that) have masses of mesolithic sites with roasted hazelnuts. Hazelnuts can go rancid, but if they are roasted inside their shells, and stored like that, they stay good for years.

I think you'd enjoy the book about the cooking ape.....How cooking made us human, by Richard Wrangham

Drying grain here was, and is, a necessity for storage.
We find a lot of old oat drying kilns...these aren't huge great affairs, they're basically fireplace sized in the most part.
Drying the grain this way does two things though, it dries it off, and if the process is done properly, it turns oats into groats. The heat puffs up the seed chaff, and the loosened sheathing is more easily threshed off. It also par cooks the oat, and it makes it a lot easier to grind.
It's still incredibly labour intensive to grind grain into flour with only hand tools though.

M
 
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Janne

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Pounded roasted grains is still eaten in the Himalayas I think.
Pounding grains seems to be the preferred method amongst several cultures. Less laborious?

Scenario:
Your woman pounds grain, it starts raining. She can not waste the grain as it took her the best part of the day to collect, so, sod it, it goes onto the hot roasting stone, the wet mass.
Voila, a tasty flatbread!


From now on, she is only allowed to pound the grains while it rains.. ( :) )
 
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Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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Best possible experiment is to do it. Buy a kg of hazel nuts. Roast (my guts will thank you) and pound into meal to cook.
I do 8-10 minutes on a sheet pan at 300-350F and both hazel nuts, pecans and walnuts burn very easily.
Tombear has a name for slate cooking slabs. Oatcakes, possibly.

I'm surprised that there isn't more evidence of the consumption of walnuts and acorns.

Seems to me that nut meal, mixed with a little egg and cooked in animal fat, would be a valuable protein and carb flat cake.

Over and over, I have read about paleo people butchering meat with flint edges.
Over and over, I read about the exploits of the master flint knappers.
The connection is normally missing in this day and time.

I was gifted a dozen "first strike" flint edges, better than scalpels, for preparing meats.
 

oldtimer

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A frying pan can be more difficult to get the turner (spatula) over the deeper side, but a proper frying pan has a flat bottom; it's really just a griddle with high sides.

T t
That's the one! I bought it back in the 1980s when I worked in the Bahamas. It's had almost daily use ever since. Great value for money.
 

Robson Valley

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Nov 24, 2014
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I made a mistake buying pecans this autumn = I'm now the owner of more than $200 ($250?) worth of pecans.
I guess I'm the one to make the nut flour and egg flat cakes.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
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That's the one! I bought it back in the 1980s when I worked in the Bahamas. It's had almost daily use ever since. Great value for money.
That's the single most used cooking vessel in the South. From cornbread to fried fish, fried chicken, French Fries, fried okra, meats, gravies, bacon, eggs (fried, scrambled, poached, shakshuka, etc.) grilled cheese sandwiches, pancakes, pineapple upside down cake, ----- pretty much everything we eat. No Southern kitchen would be without one; it is to Southern cooking what a wok is to Asian cooking.
 

Robson Valley

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It's pretty funny = about like a big pillow case full but in several bags.
I'll freeze most of them. The only way that I know of to keep them from going off.
MOF, they are in the back of my GMC Suburban and mostly frozen, as is.

From time to time I need to make a home made treat as a gift. Always Curried Pecans.
I like the Candied Idea but takes a good curry powder to ring my bell.
My kids claim the grooves hold more cumin and curry.

Nice that I've got enough to roast a sheet pan and try the nut flour.
My Braun stick-blender ought to make short work of them.
A farm egg or two and some pork fat for the pan cakes.
Local wildflower honey should be OK.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
There are two explanations for the BBQ origins (I have heard of)
1: Bucanners in Haiti that BBQ:ed the plentiful pigs and sold to ships
2: Jamaican origin, what they today call 'Jerking'. Marinate, slow cook in covered BBQ's over aromatic woods, using indirect heat.

The Indeginous people, Taino or Caribs, had neither pigs, cows or any large mammals. Nor chicken.
They had fish, shell fish, small mammals, Iguanas. None need slow cooking to be palatable......

To be honest, nowhere in the New World had chickens or pigs before Europeans brought them. Javelinas and peccaries yes, but not true pigs.

Yeah I've also read a few different opinions on the EXACT location of BBQ origin, but all theories point somewhere in the Carribean.
 

santaman2000

M.A.B (Mad About Bushcraft)
Jan 15, 2011
16,909
1,114
67
Florida
It's pretty funny = about like a big pillow case full but in several bags.
I'll freeze most of them. The only way that I know of to keep them from going off.
MOF, they are in the back of my GMC Suburban and mostly frozen, as is.

From time to time I need to make a home made treat as a gift. Always Curried Pecans.
I like the Candied Idea but takes a good curry powder to ring my bell.
My kids claim the grooves hold more cumin and curry.

Nice that I've got enough to roast a sheet pan and try the nut flour.
My Braun stick-blender ought to make short work of them.
A farm egg or two and some pork fat for the pan cakes.
Local wildflower honey should be OK.
They're good raw, roasted (parched) and salted, in a pie, candied as Toddy linked, in divinity, chopped into salds or sweet potato casserole, or best of all---in a pie.
 

Robson Valley

Full Member
Nov 24, 2014
9,959
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McBride, BC
I just wish pecans weren't so expensive up here. Can't eat them raw any more but roasting any sorts of nuts is no challenge, either.
Fresh walnut halves are about 1/4 of the price and work nearly as well in the curried nut recipe.
Had a guy from Georgia make a pecan pie, was like no other I'd ever had but he wouldn't give up the recipe.
 

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