-I think that, like,
something that chefs
don't admit that often
is that they enjoy being angry.
Like, we like it.
It's cathartic.
You get to yell at people,
throw spatulas in the dish pit,
talk shit about guests
who order eggs over-easy
because, for some reason,
I can't do it,
and you think, like,
I could, but I can't.
Hi. I'm Jake from Chez Ma Tante
and Le Crocodile,
and I'm here to make pancakes.
What makes our pancakes special
is that we fry them
in clarified butter.
I'm going to start off by making
clarified butter,
which is really, really easy.
All you do is put
cold butter in a pan
over, like, medium
or medium-high heat
and heat it up to the point
where the milk solids
have separated from the fat.
Skim it a little bit.
It gives it a much higher
burning point.
And then I'm just going
to pour it.
The pancakes also have clarified
butter mixed into the batter,
so I'm going to melt
our clarified butter.
[ Laughter ]
I'm just going to use my hands,
'cause whatever.
That's clarified butter.
Now we're making the batter.
Going to start off
by cracking our eggs.
Another thing that makes
this recipe special
is the use of egg yolks.
It makes them
a little bit more rich
instead of just
using whole eggs.
I'm going to add
a couple of egg yolks.
Oh, fuck me.
Right over the garbage can.
♪♪
The original recipe comes from a
book called "How America Eats."
It's under the name
Bittydick's Pancakes.
We decided we needed
some brunch items.
Pancakes are a pretty
obvious choice.
I did a little bit of research
and ended up
with that Bittydick's recipe
that we then changed
to be fluffier
and crispier and brighter.
So, I'm going
to add lemon zest now.
It's more important
that you would think,
the zesting
of the lemons in this.
I mean, they add
obviously citrus aroma,
but it helps cut
all the richness.
I have an ex-girlfriend
who hated lemon in pancakes,
so this is, like,
a little ode to her.
When we started
making our pancakes, she said,
"Just tell me that you didn't
put any lemon in it."
And of course, I did.
I actually like
to cream my sugar,
which is something that you do
when you're making cookies
or cake or anything like that.
I just like to make sure that
as I'm incorporating things
that it's very even.
Add my salt also.
Something that I think
is really important
is kind of activating
your baking powder,
so I activate the baking powder
in the eggs with the salt
and the sugar,
and that's what
makes them fluffy.
Once I've kind of whisked out
all the clumps
in the baking powder,
I'm going to add some milk.
I think we started out making
probably 4 quarts of pancakes,
which we would then
end up eating
because we didn't sell any.
Then we got busy,
and now we can go through,
like, over 100 quarts
of pancake batter in a week.
You can absolutely
make it ahead of time.
We make it like
a day in advance.
I'm going to start incorporating
flour little by little
just to make sure
that it's not clumpy.
It is okay, though, to have
clumps in your pancake batter.
It's totally fine.
If you whip it too hard, you'll
whip out a lot of the air.
So, like, all of the work
that the baking powder is doing
will kind of be negated
by whisking too hard.
When I used to visit my aunt,
Chez Ma Tante apropos,
in San Diego,
we would go to
a Mexican diner basically,
and we'd eat pancakes
and chili rellenos,
which surprisingly
go really well together.
And the pancakes would come out,
and they were, like,
black, almost burnt.
So when we set out
to make pancakes originally,
the idea was that they would
also be, like, almost charred,
which gives them
a little bit of,
I think, complexity that people
are probably a little nervous
at first,
because you kind of want --
Like, everyone wants, like,
golden-brown everything,
so I thought that
it would be nice
to stir it up a little bit
with dark pancakes.
♪♪
I'm going to add some milk.
♪♪
This is looking kind of loose.
I'm going to add a little bit
of flour to tighten it up.
They're called pancakes
for a reason.
I'm looking for, like,
a cake-batter consistency.
You know when you're
whisking cream or something,
and it starts to develop peaks?
You'll be able to see traces
for a little bit
before it, like, disappears.
That's what you're looking for,
traces of your whisk
and then traces of the batter.
I'm adding my butter now,
and you'll notice
when you add your butter
that it gets, like, this really
nice, like, glossy texture.
It's pretty.
Okay.
Ready to fry pancakes.
So, fortunately, I have
some clarified butter
already prepared.
I'm going to put it
into our pan.
♪♪
And it's going to seem like
a lot of fat.
That's because it is.
Okay. So now I'm smoking hot,
which is a little bit too hot.
I'm going to add a little bit
more butter.
It's also going to cool
down the pan.
That's a nice sound.
It's frying well.
The old gold standard
for when to flip a pancake
is when you start
to see bubbles going.
I'll take it just
a little bit further.
The scary thing about having
an ocean of oil like this
in your pancake
is flipping them.
And there's no real easy way
to go about it.
You're going to probably
splash hot butter.
♪♪
You want to be pretty gentle
with your pancake
until you're confident
that it's cooked,
'cause you could smack
a lot of the air out of it.
But when I get closer,
I like to tap it
to make sure
that it sounds right.
But also, like, if you tap it,
and it starts to sputter --
If there's any, like,
pancake batter
that's shooting out
to any edges of the pan,
you know that it's not
quite cooked yet.
And especially 'cause
these are very thick pancakes,
you run the risk
of undercooking them.
Part of the reason why
I'm, like, not totally worried
about pan temperature
when I'm looking for color
is that I can always kind of
fry it on the other side again.
I'm going to flip it, actually,
and brown it
just a little bit more
even though I already
kind of have
a nice, little,
like, burnt edge.
Why no toppings?
Because they're unnecessary.
If you make the most ordinary
thing excellently,
like, who really cares?
So, I'd say this one is done.
And I'm just going
to keep making pancakes.
My mother used to work
in restaurants,
and she had lots of friends
who were chefs.
So technically, the original
recipe is one that you cook
almost without butter
in the pan at all,
which is what the fat
in the batter does.
It helps to, like, release.
That results in one of those,
like, super evenly colored,
flat, but not crispy pancakes.
You'll notice that
a fried pancake
develops a super crispy
ring around the outside,
which is delicious and perfect,
and that's the difference.
Now that we finished
the pancakes,
we put more butter on top
and a generous amount
of maple syrup.
I'm going to eat all three
of these pancakes.
I'm going to take
a really big bite.
♪♪
♪♪
Actually, my pancakes
are very good.
My favorite part is that
they're crunchy and salty.
I'm Jake, again, from
Chez Ma Tante and Le Crocodile,
and for the recipe,
you can click the link below.
♪♪
♪♪
No, but I have Taurus rising
and a Taurus moon,
so there we go.
