One Day a Year - and Quite a Few Others

It's not exactly a national scandal that pancakes now seem to be ghettoised to their own Tuesday and nothing else. But it is bloody silly.

I love them. Cheap, tasty, light or substantial, sweet or savoury, American or crepes (will someone tell me how to do accents?), innumerable fillings opening up gastronomic potential. What's not to love?

We had the thin French-ish ones as a makeshift pud last night. I regularly do the fluffy American version taught me by a US-based friend for breakfast.

When I said to my son they were something I had to teach him before he flies the nest he joked about buying ready-made mix. Apparently hanging 17-year-olds upside-down from an upper floor is frowned on by the authorities.

You hear blokes boasting about being able to do their 'signature dish,' quite often a green Thai curry. As intelligent as saying you have got your time for sex down below a minute. Rather than learn one fancy dish to be repeated for friends ad nauseam, between times re-heating ready meals, it seems far more intelligent to learn a few core dishes. Pancakes - certainly the thin ones - should be one of those.

I don't bother to measure the ingredients these days, blending an egg, flour and milk (with a big pinch of salt, sometimes a tsp or two of sugar, and a slick of melted butter) with an electric mixer until the consistency of single cream. It's best left in the bowl for 30 minutes or more (I am not sure of the science, but it works) before frying in a non-stick pan greased with butter.

It made me wonder what are the other 'core' dishes or similar? A stew I guess. A simple soup. A curry (green Thai or otherwise). Salad dressing. Roast chicken. A tomato-based sauce for pasta. Chops various (technique same but degree of cooking different depending on meat). Work a few variations for each and you won't have to live on ready-meals. And gentlemen should never boast about sex - though I have my time up to over a minute. Cue old Woody Allen joke for fans of his earlier films.

Bargain Brekky

It's so true that breakfast is the most important meal of the day: it has to keep us going for the whole morning and sets the mood of the day. Muesli would depress me for hours. A favourite that costs very little and everyone loves is the American raised pancake, base for a hundred toppings. I use a mixture of white and wholemeal self-raising flours to sneak a bit of extra fibre in.

For enough to make eight or nice pancakes put about 100g of self-raising flour in a mixing bowl. Add an egg, a heaped tsp of baking powder, 1/2 a tsp of salt, 6 tsps of granulated sugar, a 3/4" cube of butter melted quickly in the microwave, and if you have it several tbsps to half a large carton of plain yoghourt - I use cheapo Sainsbury's Basic, it is tasty and only 55p a carton so why buy something that looks posher for twice the price when seemingly only the packaging is different? Add a little milk then use a hand mixer to blend it all nicely, adding more milk until you have a very thick double cream texture to the batter. It needs no rest. Cook on a flat griddle or thickly based frying pan. They need turning when big bubbles appear on the surface. Keep finished ones warm in the oven until ready to serve.

Maple syrup and butter are neither austerity products nor that healthy, but they are the most luxurious topping. Alternatives are fruit yoghourt, one little carton will do three or more, slices of banana, a freshly squeezed orange and sprinkle of sugar, or apple slices fried in butter. Shop-bought chocolate sauce is another possibility, or just melt a few squares of good chocolate in the microwave - don't overdo it or you end up with a crystalised mess.

If you have too much batter it keeps overnight in the fridge, but the pancakes tend to be a little flatter though still good. Without toppings I reckon its about 60p at most to make enough for three or four people, a nice warming, cheering filler-upper.