You wouldn’t believe how this post came to be!

A coincidence. Or maybe I should say karma.

If you’re wondering what karma’s got to do with a post about sourdough, let me see if I can shed some light on these two random circumstances that somehow came together to produce this lovely double stacker that you see in the picture.

There are two elements to our story: my sourdough dilemma and a walk downtown.

But let’s start at the beginning. And at the beginning there was a homemade sourdough starter.

If you make your own sourdough starter you’re probably familiar with the challenge of what to do with the leftovers. (That’s the sourdough you discard before you feed your starter fresh flour).

I’ve been baking my own sourdough bread for a few months now, so every morning I’m left with some unused sourdough which dutifully goes into a glass jar.

As I don’t throw anything away, I’ve accumulated jars upon jars of that discarded ‘slurry’ in my fridge over time. Great. Now what do I do with all that?

Which brings me to the second part of our story: a walk downtown.

I was walking in the main street of our little town one morning, when my eyes fell on a poster right by the drive-thru of one of the fast food chains we have here, praising their latest all-day-breakfast. I’m pretty sure you’ve seen it all over the place. It has fried egg, cheese and bacon, tucked between two slices of English muffin.

“Hmm, I wonder if I could make a homemade version of this”, I remember thinking to myself.

The tricky part is, I’m not that great of a baker, so I couldn’t see any English muffin coming out of MY oven any time in the next hundred years. My baking comfort zone is restricted to sourdough bread, and that’s about it.

Truth be told, I’m much more at ease with a pancake sizzling in a frying pan than with any batter mysteriously baking (or heavily ‘charring’) in my oven.

And then it suddenly dawned on me. Why don’t I make a couple of savory pancakes from my discarded sourdough, and then stack some goodies in between them? Put my spin on this all-day-breakfast I see in the drive-thru. Bingo!

Now let’s talk about this picture, because this is what I came up with.

What you see here is my sourdough version of an all-day-breakfast double stacker:
The top layer is made of organic fried egg with smoked wild salmon, the bottom layer (hidden from the camera) is laced with melted cheddar cheese, and all this goodness is stacked between three sourdough pancakes slathered with organic butter.  Oh yeah!

I had it for lunch that day, and then again for supper.

As you’ve probably guessed, it came out sooo good! (Well, duh, or I wouldn’t have dedicated a whole post to it!)

On another occasion, I treated the whole family to a savory sourdough pancake feast. That’s a choose-your-own kind of thing, and it goes like this: I lay a pile of pancakes in a main dish in the middle of the dining table, and everybody grabs a pancake and adds any toppings and fillings to their liking. Veggies, cheese, salami, olives, eggs, avocado. Anything goes.

Now look carefully in the picture below. You see the ‘pacman’ at the bottom?

My kids, (a.k.a my taste-testers) who have always demonstrated amazing olfactory abilities when it comes to pancakes, sneaked into the kitchen while I was laboring over the pan, and snatched a few pancakes strait out of the dish. Worried I would catch them red-handed, one of them tossed the half chewed pancake back onto the plate… Hmmm, I wonder who that might be… Maybe the one who was still chewing and talking with her mouth full when I called them for supper a minute later!

I’m pretty pumped about our sourdough pancakes!

Fermented, made from scratch, (and did I already mention they’re organic too?), this is my idea of using real and whole food to create a nourishing alternative to fast food.

Come to think of it, although sourdough definitely falls under the category of slow food (which is great in our book), it took only 5 minutes to make each pancake, so I think I’ll re-brand them super fast food!

Time for a little recipe, isn’t it?

Just a few quick notes before we dive in:

1. Look and smell your sourdough ‘slurry’ before using it. This is sourdough after all, and my guess is that it has been fermenting for quite a while now, so it’ll naturally have a strong yeasty aroma. However, if it looks and smells way too funky or feels unpleasant, I’m afraid it will need to go in the compost. When in doubt, throw it out. I guess what I’m telling you is to trust your senses.

2. If you make it for the first time (or offer it to someone else for the first time), take into account that sourdough pancakes have a pungent tang to them (hence the name SOURdough). Some palates might need some time to adjust to this new flavor.

There. I said it all. Now the recipe:

Preps: 10 minutes
Serves: 1

You can make your stacker with either two or three pancakes.

You will need:

For each pancake:
About ⅓ cup of your leftover sourdough slurry
A blob oil/fat of your choice, suitable for frying

Goodies for stacking (all optional):
Cheese of your choice, suitable for melting (I use cheddar)
Fried egg
Fried bacon/sausage or salami/pepperoni or smoked salmon
Butter
Salt & pepper

Also recommended:
A small frying pan

How to make it:

1. Pre heat a small frying pan with oil/fat.
2. Mix your sourdough slurry vigorously (for even consistency), then pour about ⅓ cup into pan.
3. Fry, covered if necessary, till all liquid has firmed up.
4. Flip and fry the other side.
5. Remove from pan, then make one or two more pancakes.
6. Slather with butter if you wish, and stack any combination of goodies (seasoned to your liking) between the pancakes.

If I piqued your interest and you’re curious about how I discovered sourdough in the first place and why I fell in love with it, you’ve got to read Shannon Stonger’s book Traditionally Fermented Foods.

That’s where it all started.

What a wonderful book! It has everything you need to know about sourdough and many other fermented foods. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if this book inspires you to try your hand at different kinds of fermentations, and soon your kitchen counter will host a vast array of fermenting bubbling jars -like mine!

I won’t hold you up anymore, go make your pancake!

Wishing you a fabulous supper and a wonderful weekend,

Didi
Wise Choice Market