Pear and blue cheese pancakes

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We are quite French here so we learned from an early age that pears pair famously with blue cheese (roquefort!) for breakfast lunch or dinner. These pancakes are not crêpes, but the thicker, risen, smaller one they call over the waters drop scones on our right and pancakes on our left. We make them with kefir, but I guess any kind of butter- or soured-milk will do, and they are quickly mixed before breakfast on a weekend morning. In these days of strong icy wind and snowy-rain, a hearty breakfast is de rigueur, if you can count yourself lucky like we do and your home has not suffered in the recent floods or storms (and my heart goes out to people who are without shelter). In the most dreadful days of the plantation Cromwell’s choice to the native Irish was “To hell or Connaught“, in truth it looks like Connaught is one little corner of paradise, as we are repeatedly spared the worst of the weather, our top soil is paper thin (before we get working on it) but we are safe.
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Pear and Blue Cheese Pancakes (enough for 3 large or 4 small morning appetites)

[adapted from Sustainable Echo]

SIFT OR MIX WITH WHISK THE DRY INGREDIENTS TOGETHER:

2 cups/270g flour (I use white spelt organic)

1 tsp soda

1tsp baking powder

3/4 tsp salt

WHISK TOGETHER AND ADD TO DRY INGREDIENTS:

2 eggs

2 tbsp melted butter or oil

1 cup/250ml kefir or buttermilk (or milk soured with lemon juice)

WHEN IT IS WELL MIXED ADD:

1 cup/250ml kefir or buttermilk (or milk soured with lemon juice)

Thin slices of pear are delicately placed onto the batter once it has been poured onto a hot greased cast iron pan,

serve with slices of blue cheese of your choice, and a glug of maple syrup (definitely not French here). And then you may go and look at some trees and be grateful.

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7 comments

    • Will you try it ? Let me know what you think.
      I do wonder if it’s an acquired taste, I did start young and got the children into it at an early age.
      Pears are wonderful with mature cheese, Comté or Appenzeller being my favourite there.

      • I love sweet and savory together, but I don’t usually eat dairy products, unless they come from my goats. I did make blue cheese a couple of times in the past though, and it was intense, but delicious. If I had some still, I would try your recipe for sure! I’d love to hear your ideas for using sharp and tangy feta cheese, which I still have in abundance- it’s been aging in brine for over 2 years!

        • If it’s too tangy, crumbling it into small chunks and leaving them in olive oil (with garlic cloves ?) for at least a week should milden it, they will stay for ever in there in a cool place and you can reuse the oil afterwards,with that my favourite thing would be to add to freshly cooked pasta mixed with stir-fried slices of pumpkin with cumin seeds. That’s what I do with my cheese remnants—my goats have been dry since August but I still have a couple of stone-hard cheeses to grate parmesan-style and one pot of curds in olive oil that together with one small pumpkin that I have earmarked will go into that particular dish in the near future. I have never made blue cheese, did you find it easy to make ?

          • not too easy, but totally doable! have you ever seen the Dr. Fankhauser website? He makes cheese at home and is a professor of biology, so he has a cool twist. http://biology.clc.uc.edu/fankhauser/cheese/cheese.html This is where I found out how to make many of the cheeses I made. I did find that eating it at a young stage made for a milder blue cheese flavor. Oh how cool you have goats, I better go looking around on your blog for pics!

          • Thanks a lot for the link, looks like a brilliant site. Have to find a billygoat pronto before the end of the season if I want to have milk to practice with this year !
            I’m afraid there aren’t too many pictures of the animals as I rarely take my camera with me when I put on my dirty clothes on, especially in this season.

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