AS everybody knows, the recipes that flavoured our childhood are often the most cherished.
For local HR professional, Udani Aththanayake, her mother and grandmother’s coconut pancakes, often enjoyed as a delicious breakfast or tea-time snack, are no exception.
“As I grew up in Sri Lanka, surrounded by coconut trees, most of our recipes were made with coconut scrapes or coconut milk. My mom and my grandmother always used to make the coconut pancakes for us whenever we asked.”
Sri Lankan coconut pancakes
Ingredients
Sweet coconut filling
2 cups grated fresh coconut 1 1⁄2 cups dark brown sugar 1⁄8 tsp alt (taste the filling and adjust as you like)
3 tsp cardamom 3 tbs water.
For pancake batter
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 eggs 3 cups coconut milk 1⁄4 tsp salt 1⁄4 tsp turmeric powder 3 drops of vanilla essence (optional).
Other
Oil as needed
Method
- Open the shell of cardamom pods and take the seeds out.
- Put the seeds with 1/8 tsp of salt into a mortar and pestle and grind them into powder. In a pan, add your fresh grated coconut and dry roast them to remove the moisture. Do not wait until they get brown. You just want to get them dry, so they absorb the sugar syrup well.
- In a separate pan, place brown sugar, powdered cardamom salt mix, with 2 tbsp of water. Mix well, turn on the heat and let the sugar dissolve and heat up. Do not keep mixing. If you mix, the sugar will crystalize back. So, let it just dissolve and heat up. If it heats up too quickly the sugar will burn. Swirl the pan if the sugar doesn’t heat up evenly.
- Turn off the heat when the sugar is completely dissolved, and syrup is heated through.
- Add your dried coconut to the syrup and mix well. Let the mixture cool down by transferring the sweet coconut mix to a different bowl.
- Add all the ingredients for the filling into a blender and blend until smooth. The consistency should be a little thicker than heavy whipping cream.
- Heat a small non-stick frying pan and add two-three drops of oil. Then wipe out the oil with a paper towel. Keep the heat on medium-low. The pan shouldn’t be too low when you add the batter.
- Add ⅓ cup of batter to the pan and swirl it around to spread it. Let the pancake cook until it looks cooked all the way through.
- Shake the pan to loosen up the pancake from the pan. It should loosen up very easily. If not, leave it on the heat for a few seconds.
- Transfer the pancake onto a plate.
- Place some filling on the pancake, closer to one side.
- Gently but tightly, roll the pancake. Do this step when the pancake is warm and flexible. While you roll the pancake, you can pour batter into the pan for the next one.
