While selecting my recipes for last week's menu, I came across this recipe ... Cornmeal Pancakes with Smoked Salmon and Caper Sauce. It was in my Weight Watchers: Make It In Minutes cookbook. It sounded like something different and so I decided to give it a whirl ... and I am GLAD I DID!
Smoked salmon is not something commonly found on menus ... except perhaps at a Bagel Shop that offers it up with tomatoes, onions and cream cheese. I've also seen it on cruise ship brunch spreads. With this delicacy selling at about $7 for 4oz., it's a small slice of luxury that is worth splurging on once in a while.
For those who associate pancakes with breakfast (and who doesn't?) this takes those syrup-loving tastebuds and makes them think outside of the box. These pancakes are savory, not sweet. So this becomes the perfect treat to serve up for either a brunch or even dinner, as I did here.
The batter consists of all purpose flour, cornmeal, skim milk, ground corriander, cayenne pepper and 1 egg. Once mixed, I had to let it sit and "marinade" for about 15 minutes, which gave me time to make the sauce and pre-heat my pancake griddle.
The sauce was made with sour cream, about 2T of red onion, 1T of capers, a little lemon zest. I put this mix in the fridge until it was time to serve.
Meanwhile, my griddle was getting nice and hot -- on low heat, of course -- those pans hold heat well, and will burn the pancakes if they get too hot. I took a scant 1/4 cup of the pancake batter and put in on my olive oil sprayed griddle. I repeated, until I could not fit any more pancakes on there ... I got about 3 per batch. Once bubbles formed on the top of the pancakes, I flipped and lightly toasted the other side.
I placed 3 pancakes (NOT stacked) on a plate ... equal to one serving, believe it or not! ... I topped each pancake with a small slice of smoked salmon, and dressed it with 2T of the sauce.
These were not only wonderful on the taste buds, they were also very filling! My husband and I were only able to eat 2 of the 3 "allowed" pancakes. Hooray for left-overs for lunch! This also pairs quite nicely with a glass of Shiloh Road Chardonnay. If you were so inclined, you could also make "mini" pancakes and use just a tad of the sauce and salmon to make tiny appetizers for your next cocktail party.
Buon Appetito!
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