Last updated on April 5th, 2021 at 06:16 pm
This matzo meal pancake recipe is a unique spin on the traditional cakes from a unique cookbook.
Exploring history and culture through food is probably the only way I like to consume information—though I love reading, history lessons are so much more fun when food is involved. We all have such unique relationships with what we eat and I’m endlessly fascinated by cookbooks and how they’ve evolved over the decades. I picked up this gem at a thrift store in Chicago: Portal to Good Cooking Volume II.
Curious Cookbook
It was published in 1984 and it’s a compilation of recipes from Women’s American ORT. I’m not really sure what that means, but the recipes are amazingly retro. Frankly, they seem pretty dated for the ‘80s, but it’s so much fun. You can find the method for making edible items like “Frosted Fruit Soup”, “Calorie-Trimmed Mock Sweet Potato Fluff” or “Hot Dog Noodle Casserole” — which I like to imagine as a poor man’s tuna casserole. I’d love to be at the dinner table of the cook that makes these dishes earnestly. The mom serving “Fronch” fare in Better Off Dead comes to mind.
Matzo Meal Pancakes
I did find one intriguing and inoffensive that works well for Passover: . It’s sort of a so it does not include or soda, so the method is what I find fascinating.
For these (or or ) , rather than beating the whole into the , the eggs are separated, yolks are mixed in first and the are whipped and folded in just before frying.
For my own twist, rather than using orange juice the original recipe calls for, I used clementines, threw in some zest and cut the salt. And instead of , I made a syrup with the clementine juice, but feel free to dust it with powdered sugar and serve it with a big glass of milk.
Matzo Meal Pancakes
Ingredients
- 3 eggs separated
- ¼ tsp salt
- 1 cup clementine juice divided
- Zest of 2 clementines
- ¾ cup matzo meal
- 1 tbsp Olive oil, butter or vegetable oil
Instructions
- In a medium bowl, beat yolks.
- Add salt. Stir in matzo meal. Stir in ½ cup juice followed by the zest.
- Using a stand mixer with the whip attachment, beat egg whites on high until soft peaks form. Stir remaining juice into matzo mix until it loosens up. Fold in egg whites.
- Place skillet over medium-high heat. Add about a tablespoon of olive oil. Spoon batter into the frying pan and let fry on each side for about 30 seconds, making sure to press down on the cake after flipping once to squeeze out batter.
- Serve immediately.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GHbjiwrLYg
Serve with syrup or cinnamon and sugar. (I made a clementine syrup, but I would imagine cranberry syrup would be a complementary condiment.)
These are fun matzo meal pancakes—I was hoping the whipped egg whites would make them more fluffy or give them more texture or character, but I doubt leaving out that step would change the cakes that much.
