Irish Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes with Sweet Apple Topping

To download a copy of the recipe for Irish Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes with Apple Topping in cookbook-style format, click HERE.

With St. Patrick’s Day rapidly approaching, it’s once again a good time to look to our Irish friends for a wee bit of inspiration. As we’ve done here in the past, it’s again a great pleasure to present something in time for St. Patrick’s Day that doesn’t involve regrettable stereotypes or green food coloring.

This week’s recipe is for oatmeal-banana pancakes served with a sweet apple topping. From a culinary standpoint, one of the things I find so interesting about this traditional Irish approach to pancakes is that the oatmeal is not used as is, but rather is ground to a flour-like texture and combined with whole wheat flour. Once the other ingredients are added and the batter ladled onto a hot griddle, the result is a delicious pancake with a very pleasing texture.

Some Cook’s Notes before we begin.

• Although the recipe you can download from the link above is done in a traditional cookbook format (ingredients list first, then cooking method), I’ve heard from a number of readers that they prefer to cook directly from the recipe as it’s posted on this site. To make it easier for anyone who would like to do that, beginning today each new recipe post will include an ingredients list.

• Regarding the oatmeal itself, in this recipe I’ve used rolled oats, the general use oatmeal found in most households, including mine. For true Irish authenticity, you might instead want to use steel cut Irish oats, a fuller grain also known by the funny-sounding (at least to my infantile sense of humor) name of Pinhead Oats.

• If the buttermilk called for in the recipe is not available, acidulated milk can be substituted. (Add 2 Tbsp of white vinegar to 2-1/4 cups plus 2 Tbsp room temperature low-fat milk, and let rest for a few minutes.)

• These pancakes are well accompanied by a side of eggs and/or bacon. (In the photo above, I’ve added simple scrambled eggs with the decidedly American topping of ketchup.)

This recipe makes 5-6 servings.

Here are the ingredients you’ll need.

Topping: ¼ cup firm-textured butter substitute; ¼ cup packed brown sugar; 4 large apples, peeled and sliced; ¼ tsp ground cinnamon; ¼ tsp ground nutmeg; ¼ tsp salt; and 2 tsp fresh lemon juice.

Pancake Batter: ¼ cup uncooked oatmeal; 2 fresh egg whites (not the kind in a carton); pinch cream of tartar; 2 cups whole wheat flour; ¼ tsp salt; 3 egg substitute eggs; 2-1/2 cups low-fat buttermilk

Other Ingredients: firm-textured butter substitute (for coating the griddle); 2 bananas, sliced into thin circles; and pancake syrup (optional).

To prepare the topping:

Melt the butter substitute over moderate heat in a medium saucepan.

Add the sugar and stir until melted.

Add the remaining topping ingredients, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook until the apples are soft but not mushy. Set aside until ready to put on the pancakes.

To make the pancake batter:

Place the oatmeal in a mini-processor and process into a flour-like powder.

Place the egg whites and cream of tartar in a bowl, and whisk until soft peaks form.

In a bowl, combine the flour, oatmeal and salt.

Add the egg substitute and buttermilk to the bowl, and stir until combined and smooth.

Fold in the beaten egg whites to form the batter.

To prepare and serve the pancakes:

Working in batches, ladle pancake-size portions of batter onto a hot griddle that has been coated with melted butter substitute. Cook until the tops are bubbly and the bottoms are browned, about two minutes.

Place some banana slices on each pancake.

Turn each pancake over, banana-side down, and cook until the bottoms are browned, about another minute. Place on a plate and repeat, cooking in batches until all the batter is finished.

To serve, place a serving of pancakes on a plate and top with some of the apple topping. Add syrup if desired. Serve with eggs and/or bacon.

To download a copy of the recipe for Irish Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes with Apple Topping in cookbook-style format, click HERE.

There’s an Irish proverb which says, “A cabin with plenty of food is better than a hungry castle.” Here’s hoping your cabin is always filled with the comforting aroma of good food, including Oatmeal-Banana Pancakes with Sweet Apple Topping.

Please visit again next week for another tasty recipe! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Irish Potato Farls Breakfast

A míle fáilte!

With only six shopping days left till St. Patrick’s Day, I thought it would be good to celebrate with something a little more authentic than the usual mid-March atrocities that reduce Ireland’s rich culture to green bagels and paper leprechaun hats.

The solution? An easy, delicious Irish Potato Farls Breakfast.

Nobody does breakfast like the Irish. Northern Ireland, for example, has the Ulster Fry, the ultimate in heart-attack-on-a-plate decadence, consisting of two eggs, two sausages, two slices of bacon, two slices of black pudding (a mixture of onions, pork fat, oatmeal, spices, and pig blood), and two of the aforementioned potato farls. (To keep all of this from becoming unhealthy, some cooks add a tomato.)

Having dedicated my culinary life to making reduced fat food taste good, we’re going to put aside most elements of the Ulster Fry and concentrate on the potato farls, a delightful potato pancake that’s crisp on the outside and soft on the inside. (New Yorkers might be reminded of a knish.) The name comes from “fardel,” a Gaelic word meaning four parts. (As you’ll see, the rolled out potato dough is cut into four parts for cooking.) There are other varieties besides the potato kind: soda farls (an Irish soda bread dough flattened and cooked in a pan or griddle instead of being baked in an oven); wheaten farls (similar to soda farls but made with whole wheat flour); and treacle farls (made with treacle, which is similar to molasses).

In this recipe, we’ll make a hearty breakfast by serving the potato farls with eggs topped with onions, herbs, chopped turkey sausage, and Irish cheese; turkey sausage with mustard; and a bit of fresh fruit. (If you want black pudding, you’re going to have to add that on your own.)

Some Cook’s Notes before we begin:

• Thanks to dear friend Sheila, she of “Norn Iron,” for starting me thinking about farls in the first place.

• Traditional potato farls are made without the onion, rosemary and thyme used in this recipe. To season them for the American palate while still respecting Irish culture, I’ve added these items which, while not ordinarily found in farls, are often found elsewhere in the cuisine. Similarly, farls are generally made with boiled potatoes; I prefer to bake them for a little deeper flavor.

• Farls are best eaten soon after cooking. Saved overnight, the outsides lose a lot of their crispness, and they’re just not the same.

This recipe makes eight farls. (One is a good portion for most people; big eaters might want two.)

On a griddle, cook enough turkey sausages to have two whole links per serving, plus one diced link to top each serving of eggs.

Grate some Irish cheese to top the eggs you’ll be cooking.

Bake 2 to 2-1/4 pounds of potatoes until tender. (Baking them in the microwave is recommended; otherwise, bake as you ordinarily would to serve baked potatoes.) After the potatoes are baked, cut them into pieces. As much as possible, do the remaining steps with the potatoes warm to hot.

Put the pieces through a ricer or food mill. (You can use a masher, but the ricer or food mill will give a better texture since it doesn’t repeatedly beat up the starches in the potato the way a masher does.)

Stir in 1-1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 tablespoons of melted butter substitute, 3 tablespoons of minced onion, 1 teaspoon of dried rosemary, 1 teaspoon of dried thyme, ½ tablespoon of salt (more or less to taste), and ¼ teaspoon of fresh ground black pepper (more or less to taste).

Mix until well combined into a dough-like consistency, adding up to ½ cup of additional flour if necessary to get the right texture. When the dough is mixed, knead lightly for a minute or two.

Cut the dough ball in half. Roll out one of the halves to a circle about ¼” thick. (Tip: when rolling the dough, putting wax paper on top of the dough makes clean-up easier.)

Cut the rolled-out dough into four wedges.

Place the wedges on a lightly oiled hot griddle and cook till golden and slightly crisp on the outside, about three minutes per side. If you want to top your eggs with some additional chopped onion, you can place it on the griddle and cook it at the same time as the farls.

Place the cooked wedges on a plate and cover with a clean towel while you repeat the rolling, cutting and cooking with the other half of the dough, and complete the remaining steps.

Cook your eggs in whatever style you prefer, and top with the cooked onions, diced sausage, a bit of the rosemary and thyme, and some of the cheese.

On each plate, put one or two farls, the eggs, two sausage links with mustard, and some fresh fruit as pictured above.

Now that’s what I call a hearty breakfast, and just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. (On any other day of the year, too!)

You can download the recipe by clicking here.

Hope you enjoy this special treat. Hope, too, that you’ll be back next week for another fun, delicious recipe. (Why not also tell a friend who you think might enjoy what we do here!) Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to póg an cócaire. ;-)