Last Saturday I made spelt pancakes and fried smelt for breakfast.
The pancakes were vegan at Evelyn’s request. I filled the dry ingredients bowl and Alexis filled the wet ingredients bowl. I made the pancakes with about 4/5 c. spelt flour, 3/5 c. flax flour and maybe 1/5 c. pumpkin seed flour. I ground each of these flours from whole seeds with an old coffee grinder. Almond milk was used for the majority of the liquid. The pancakes were sweetened with brown sugar. We used a mixture of ground psyllium and water to replace the eggs. When making pancakes, I usually add the egg yolks to the liquid half of the batter and fold the whipped whites into the combined batter for added fluffiness and structure. Alexis ground the psyllium and mixed it with warm water to form a gel. I did not whip the psyllium gel.
I fried the smelt in butter. I ate four smelt without convincing anyone else(Evelyn, Janice and Matt) to try them. When Carla and Adam #2 got out of bed, they said they would eat some smelt. I fried them 4 smelt. They ate their smelt with eggs or something, because the spelt cakes were gone by then. Janice ate the final large cake. She ate it with cashew butter and syrup.
The cakes were thin compared to the type of pancakes where I whip the egg whites. These pancakes had a rough, hearty texture. The inside of the cakes was moister and softer than that of the egg cakes. The first couple spelt cakes were hard to cook due to their fragility, but after frying a few pans of them the batter began to cohere more and they were flippable. I was satisfied with the spelt cakes, and the smelt was just how I remembered it.
The heads of the fried smelt made good handles. I held each smelt’s spine in place by holding onto the smelt’s head with my left hand and pulling off a fillet with my right. I pulled the fillets off one side at a time and I popped them into my mouth one at a time. I ate 3 out of 4 fish without disturbing the guts and ribs when I removed the fillets. After eating a couple of smelt I tried eating them with the fins pulled off. I am not sure whether I preferred the added crunchiness of the fins.
