Flour, eggs, and milk are the basic ingredients for pancakes, but what happens if you get 12 different chefs to make their version of the same classic dish? From the school cafeteria to Michelin Star restaurants, see how these chefs put their own spin on pancakes.
Category
🛠️
LifestyleTranscript
00:00Pancakes are deceptively more complicated than they look.
00:17The first step, we're going to make our batter.
00:19All-purpose flour, sifting it.
00:21It's breaking up any clumps.
00:22It's also going to aerate the flour.
00:23It's going to allow me to mix the batter and hydrate it more quickly,
00:26so I have less chance of over-mixing it.
00:29Baking powder is baking soda with some friends
00:31that are going to activate the sodium bicarbonate.
00:34It's going to create carbon dioxide, add some leavening to the pancakes.
00:39Add an egg.
00:40Melted butter should not be hot,
00:41because it's going to start to cook the egg and curdle the milk.
00:44Always add wet to dry.
00:46If you add dry to wet, it's going to puff up,
00:48and it's also going to clump up the flour as well.
00:50This is very easy to overwork.
00:51Once all the large lumps have disappeared, it looks very even.
00:55This is when I can tell who's been paying attention in class,
00:57is that they stop mixing, because the gluten has been formed.
01:00If we keep working them, we're going to develop a product
01:02that's very strong and very gummy,
01:04which is great for things like pizza dough and bagels,
01:06but for a pancake, we want to emphasize the cake part.
01:09I have a nonstick pan, medium-high heat.
01:12We start to see the baking soda making carbon dioxide bubbles.
01:15We're ready to flip it when the outside looks a little more dry
01:19and a little more cooked,
01:20and the bubbles breaking in the center stay open.
01:23This is another important step, but do not push down your pancake
01:26We created all the carbon dioxide.
01:28We want to trap it in there.
01:30Pushing it down, you're going to get rid of all the air that we worked so hard.
01:33Start to smell the pancake.
01:35That's usually a good indicator that it's done.
01:37These pancakes look perfect to me.
01:39They look handmade.
01:40They're a lovely golden color.
01:42I have no complaints.
01:44We do have pancakes in France, but we don't call them pancakes.
01:48We call them crepes.
01:50We're going to make what we call crepe Suzette.
01:52It's a very old dish, and you're going to find thousands of recipes,
01:55but this one is the best.
01:56So first, I'm going to mix the epi flour.
01:58You don't want the crepes to fall apart in the pan,
02:00so you need a solid flour.
02:02Just a pinch of salt.
02:03A little, I would say, fizz on your tongue when you eat the crepes.
02:06Now, wet ingredients.
02:08Four whole eggs.
02:09I add three more egg yolks.
02:11It's for the color, the consistency.
02:13It's going to be a lot more moist.
02:15Vanilla paste.
02:16The paste still has the seed inside the vanilla.
02:19You get more perfume into the crepes, into your mouth.
02:22I'm going to make a hole, start slowly from the middle,
02:25and if I do a good job, there will be no lump at the end.
02:29I can add my beautiful French butter.
02:32Orange zest.
02:33You have to mix it a lot, but to develop the gluten,
02:36you have to leave the dough to rest for at least 12 hours.
02:39This is a special pan for crepes.
02:41It doesn't have the side too high, so it's easy to flip it.
02:44What I'm looking for is it's going to start to get brown around.
02:47When it starts to do that, it's time for me to flip it.
02:51It's like a French tortilla.
02:52The crepes are done.
02:54Now we're going to make the sauce.
02:56I made a special orange butter.
02:58We're going to melt the butter in the pan.
03:01We're going to add the zest.
03:03Cook it for three minutes.
03:04Then we add the crepe in the butter,
03:06and then we flambe with creme anglaise.
03:08It's an orange liqueur.
03:09It's beautiful, has a lot of flavor, and is good with food.
03:13Voila.
03:14Why do we flambe?
03:15We just want the flavor of the liqueur.
03:18The liqueur evaporates, and you only have the flavor.
03:23Voila.
03:24Crepe Suzette.
03:26The pancake I'm going to show you today
03:27actually has some really unique elements
03:29that help keep that pancake nice and fresh,
03:31even though you might have had it 10 hours after it was made.
03:33You know, if someone's going to eat this in an airplane,
03:36up in the sky, nine hours into their flight,
03:39it has to be tasty, be digestible, flavorful.
03:43Start with our all-purpose flour.
03:45We're going to add in our baking powder.
03:46We need to have salt in this so that the food tastes flavorful,
03:49but I can't put too much salt.
03:51That's not good for in-flight.
03:52It causes inflammation, causes swelling,
03:54so really being careful not to add too much salt.
03:56If the glucose index is too high in your food,
03:59you'll get a big sugar spike.
04:00When you're sitting in an airplane,
04:01and then your sugar crashes, and now you're tired,
04:04and you need to go work, you don't want to be crashing.
04:06I'm adding the ricotta cheese into our eggs
04:08to add a really nice fat, as well as adding protein.
04:11It's going to help lower the glucose index of the pancakes.
04:14We're adding our milk now, orange zest,
04:17and the honey has a better glucose index
04:19than sugar you might find in your pantry.
04:21Now, add our dry ingredients.
04:24We are now going to use some egg whites for leavening.
04:27It helps give me some protein.
04:28The pan's about medium heat.
04:30I don't want to have a very rich, oily dish,
04:34so just a little bit of oil just to make sure things don't stick.
04:37If they reheated this on board in just a regular old oven,
04:40it would probably be a little dry.
04:42The new aircraft, now they have combination ovens
04:44that inject steams,
04:45so these are not going to be dry cardboard.
04:47So this is the foil kit.
04:49This is what the crew would see
04:50when they pull it out of the oven ready to plate.
04:52And that whole kit is sitting in a refrigerator
04:54until it is put into the oven by the aircraft crew,
04:57and they're going to use this all sectioned out
04:59to plate exactly the way I've plated for us here.
05:02So I'm adding some cinnamon-spiced apples.
05:05We have some creme fraiche mixed with a little maple syrup
05:08in lieu of maple syrup alone.
05:10Put a little blueberries for some garnish here.
05:13Voila.
05:15We do pancakes every single breakfast,
05:18anything from 40 to 50 orders a day.
05:21This pancake mix, we buy it, but then we tweak it.
05:24We make it the way we want it.
05:25So we're going to mix all the wet ingredients together.
05:28Sour cream is going to give you, like, a sponge.
05:30Buttermilk is bitter.
05:32Like, if you taste it, you say, oh, my God.
05:34But this bitterness with the pancake mix,
05:36they're going to marry together.
05:38And once they marry, it's going to be amazing.
05:41Now we're going to mix it gentle.
05:43Don't go crazy on it.
05:44If you mix it too much, it's not going to give the puff.
05:47It's going to be like, eh.
05:49It gets flat.
05:50The way we do pancakes in Brooklyn Diner
05:52is in the pan, and we bake it, because the thicker, it's fluffy.
05:55Normal pancakes is done on a flat top.
05:57They're thinner.
05:58And most of the time, they're, like, dry.
06:01Can you hear the sizzling?
06:03It's kind of breathing.
06:05You can see holes.
06:06That's music.
06:07I love it.
06:08This time, we're going to put them in the oven.
06:10The pancake was in the oven for a couple minutes.
06:12You see it?
06:13It's nice and firm.
06:14So now we're going to flip it.
06:16One, two, three.
06:17Voila.
06:18You see that?
06:19Tell me, isn't it the sexiest pancake
06:20you've ever seen in your life?
06:21Once I put the pancake, you're not
06:23going to see the blueberry sauce.
06:25But then once you eat it, you're going to taste it.
06:27And you're going to say, oh, my God.
06:29Once again, you might say, chef, that's too much blueberry sauce.
06:31I know.
06:32I am the chef.
06:33All right?
06:34Thank you very much.
06:35Fresh blueberries for sure.
06:36Some cream on top.
06:37This is the way I do it.
06:38You want to come to visit me, Brooklyn Diner, any time.
06:43Oblini is a smaller pancake, savory pancake.
06:46It's traditionally served alongside caviar.
06:48We love to start our meal with a bite of caviar.
06:50And this is the perfect vehicle for it.
06:52We're adding a few ingredients here to make it more luxurious.
06:55I'm going to mix the creme fraiche with the potato
06:57while it's still warm and get a nice emulsified base here.
07:01All my dry ingredients.
07:02I have a little bit of flour, a touch of buckwheat flour,
07:05which gives it a little toasty and nutty note.
07:07Going to mix the dry and then incorporate it
07:09into the potato and creme fraiche mixture.
07:11Add my eggs, one at a time, and incorporate it.
07:14And once that's incorporated, let it rest for a little while,
07:17maybe 20, 30 minutes.
07:19We would make this ahead of service.
07:21Put it in a squeeze bottle with the top cut.
07:23Allows us to put little portions in and make it perfect round
07:27instead of trying to spoon it onto the pan.
07:29This has gotten a little bit brown and crisp around the edges.
07:32Not bad for the first one.
07:34Once they've flipped and cooked a little longer on the other side,
07:37I can tell it's cooked through.
07:38It's not mushy.
07:39It's not soft in a way that I can tell there's raw batter.
07:42So I'm just going to pull them off.
07:43Let them rest.
07:44Allow the inside, the potato, the eggs to set.
07:47So this is a little bit of egg salad.
07:50I love egg and caviar together.
07:52And then what's better than eggs and pancakes?
07:55This is a pretty classic egg salad.
07:57We do use some Japanese mustard powder
07:59to give it a little more of that pungency and bite to it.
08:02So for the caviar, I'm using wooden spoons.
08:05Traditionally, you don't want to use anything metallic
08:07because it can react with the caviar itself
08:10and give it a little bit of an off taste.
08:12Using a little bit of dill to garnish.
08:14And then if we're serving this to a table of three people,
08:17pop three little canapes on the plate.
08:19This is the perfect start to a tasting menu.
08:22Today I'm going to make some blueberry protein pancakes.
08:25Oftentimes I will include protein in my recipes
08:27because my clients will eat this after an intense workout.
08:30They have to feed the muscles.
08:32So in a bowl, we're going to add in one cup of all-purpose flour,
08:35one tablespoon of brown sugar, granulated sugar,
08:37one teaspoon of baking powder,
08:40half a teaspoon of baking soda,
08:43and then one scoop of vanilla protein powder.
08:46Combine all my wet ingredients.
08:47We have three-fourths cups of milk,
08:49one egg, a teaspoon of vanilla extract,
08:51as well as one stick of melted butter.
08:53These pancakes will not taste like protein powder.
08:55I'm using a vanilla protein,
08:56so it's going to actually complement the blueberry taste.
08:58Blueberries are another healthy aspect you can add to your pancakes.
09:01They're full of antioxidants,
09:02and they're going to add a nice pop of color.
09:04Little hint of salt.
09:06And our batter looks ready. It's nice and thick.
09:08I do have to make pancakes in large quantities for my NFL clients
09:12because these are grown men that eat like monsters.
09:14And using a griddle is ideal,
09:16so you can put a lot at one time
09:18and then flip them all in the order that you put them down.
09:20These are looking really good, and now it's time to plate.
09:26And these are my blueberry pancakes.
09:30Banh Xeo is going to be a very thin Vietnamese pancake.
09:33You can fill it with whatever you like.
09:35In this case, shrimp chorizo served with herbs,
09:37mint, lettuce, and like a sweet chili sauce.
09:40Our batter, it's going to have rice flour.
09:43It adds lightness to the dish.
09:44It's going to add a little bit of crunch to it.
09:46There is a little bit of AP flour in there for the structure,
09:48but the idea is to have a thin crepe
09:50as opposed to something that's kind of thicker.
09:52We have some turmeric for some color, salt,
09:55some coconut milk, and some water.
09:58An immersion blender, this is probably one of my favorite tools in the kitchen.
10:01Okay, now that's all mixed together.
10:04We want to add scallion ends.
10:06The key here is to make sure that it sits for 10 to 15 minutes.
10:09So our pan's getting a little hot here.
10:11I want to throw a little shiitake mushrooms,
10:13a little bit of onion, some chorizo.
10:15Chorizo is going to be a Spanish cured pork product.
10:18It's seasoned with a lot of spices,
10:20in this case smoked paprika.
10:22The diaspora of Spanish cuisine has entered
10:24a lot of different cultures in the world,
10:26and so this is a fun way of kind of having
10:28this natural integration of these cuisines.
10:30I want one single layer, kind of like an omelet.
10:33I want to make sure that it's coated completely underneath the pan.
10:36I'm looking for the sides to crisp up,
10:38and then what I'm going to do is I'm going to add
10:40some of the bean sprouts and fold it in there.
10:42The turmeric in here, it's kind of funny, makes it look like an omelet,
10:44but no eggs in here.
10:46And served with the pancake, mint, cilantro,
10:48as well as the sweet dipping sauce.
10:51I'm going to make the Japanese pancake.
10:54So very fluffy and light.
10:56I'm going to make pancake dough.
10:58Egg is four pieces.
11:00Butter is at room temperature.
11:02And a special item, yogurt.
11:06Taste is very light.
11:08Then flour.
11:10And 5% matcha, already mixed.
11:12Matcha is a Japanese green tea powder.
11:15Right now it looks not smoothie,
11:17but after cook, pancake is very smooth.
11:20Medium-high heat, fry pan.
11:22I put the rings,
11:24just make a round shape.
11:26I got this cover.
11:28Steamed pancake is perfect.
11:36Five, six minutes steam.
11:38Pancake almost done.
11:41The decoration is a custard sauce,
11:44Japanese matcha sauce, whipped cream,
11:47strawberry and chestnuts,
11:49granola, anko,
11:51Japanese red bean paste,
11:53matcha ice cream,
11:55and last one, mint,
11:57powdered sugar.
11:59There you go.
12:01There is my pancake.
12:03Today I'm going to be making marigot,
12:05or marigotti.
12:07It is a pasta or pancake,
12:09baked in sauce,
12:11and with melted crunchy cheese on top.
12:13So first we make the batter.
12:15Whisk together whole eggs,
12:17until they are very light and fluffy.
12:20Add milk.
12:22We don't want any lumps of flour.
12:24We want some structure to them,
12:26without them being bready.
12:28Rest for at least 3 or 4 hours.
12:30I'm going to add melted butter.
12:32I add it last,
12:34so we don't wind up with a greasy batter.
12:36I'm using a thin pan,
12:38and it will cook very quickly,
12:40so that we don't have a tough pancake,
12:42so now I'm going to flip.
12:44No problem.
12:46Quick cook on the other side,
12:48and out.
12:50I'm mixing the batter up from the bottom to the top,
12:52to make sure that any flour that has settled
12:54to the bottom,
12:56comes up to the top.
12:58The filling for the marigot today,
13:00we have a filling that incorporates
13:02roast pork sandwich of Philadelphia,
13:04diced roast pork, braised broccoli rabe,
13:06American provolone, parsley,
13:08and Cousits marigot filling,
13:10and olive oil, our red sauce,
13:12into the roasting dish.
13:14Two little babies,
13:16right in the sauce.
13:18A little more red sauce on top,
13:20some grated provolone cheese,
13:22so it can get all bubbly, and caramely,
13:24and cheesy.
13:26Put these in the oven for 30 to 45 minutes.
13:28I'm finishing with
13:30salsa verde,
13:32made with preserved long hot peppers,
13:34the hot pepper of Philadelphia.
13:36This is marigot
13:38in the style of
13:40Philly's famous roast pork sandwich.
13:42We take the breakfast very seriously
13:44at the Plaza Hotel. That's the first experience
13:46at the Plaza Hotel, to have an omelette, or have a nice pancake.
13:48This batter is our secret
13:50recipe since 1970.
13:52What I have added to this is the egg white foam.
13:54Gently folding
13:56the egg whites in, and just making sure
13:58you will not over mix it.
14:00The egg white is a very good trick for a fluffy pancake.
14:02So now we're adding the killer fry batter.
14:04I'm looking for making sure the pan is not too much hot.
14:08When you flip it to the other side,
14:10it's going to be becoming really more fluffy
14:12because of the egg white.
14:14When there is a disorderly, like, four room surface,
14:16it's going to take maybe the 18th floor.
14:18The egg white will make sure the pancake
14:20is fluffy and fresh.
14:22Like sugar powder, making sure it's all covered.
14:24Place our three pieces of chocolate chip,
14:26really giving that sweetness to the pancake.
14:28And there is one more thing we do
14:30at the Plaza to make it very special.
14:32It's the stamp with the Plaza logo on top of the pancake.
14:34I use box mix,
14:36and it's just the best thing to do
14:38because it's easy.
14:40It's going to end up sort of the same anyways.
14:42Even though you're using a box mix,
14:44the vanilla extract, it elevates it.
14:46And then we're using a little bit of cinnamon
14:48because cinnamon is always great
14:50for making things feel cozy.
14:52I don't like to pre-measure my butter.
14:54I like to add it in my hand or with a stick
14:56because I feel like you can tell the amount better
14:58that you're going to put in.
15:00And if it starts to become too much,
15:02it's all already in the pan.
15:04Okay, we're going to get out the tool.
15:06This is my pot-slash-pan cover.
15:10I like putting lids on pancakes
15:12because I think it just, again,
15:14cooks faster.
15:16Ooh!
15:18That was so good.
15:20It looks so pretty.
15:22I got this at HomeGoods.
15:24Maybe it's supposed to be a cutting board.
15:26I really don't think so.
15:28This is a strawberry compote I made.
15:30This is a strawberry that I shaped like a rose.
15:32Here we go.
15:34So today we are making pancakes
15:36with a beautiful sauce
15:38made out of frozen blueberries,
15:40cinnamon, and sugar.
15:42We receive our items pre-cooked
15:44to ensure the quality and nutritional standards.
15:46You can imagine how many kids we're feeding every single day.
15:48It's over a million, so we need consistency
15:50all throughout New York City.
15:52Our pancakes are at least 51% whole grain.
15:54This way we ensure a high
15:56content of fiber into the grains
15:58that we're serving daily.
16:00So the first thing I'm going to do is pop this into the oven.
16:02We try to introduce a fresh element,
16:04and in this case we're going to have a nice blueberry compote.
16:06At the moment we're just making a portion
16:08that would feed roughly five people,
16:10but these recipes can usually feed anywhere
16:12from 800 to 1,000 kids.
16:14Water into a heavy-bottomed pot.
16:16One tablespoon of brown sugar.
16:18I have a big sweet tooth, but our meals
16:20are low-sodium, low-sugar, low-fat.
16:22Some lemon zest, just to brighten it up a bit.
16:24And cinnamon powder.
16:26The dairy component
16:28will be chocolate milk,
16:30our blueberry compote, and then an additional
16:32fruit, peach.
16:34Here we have a perfectly nutritional, balanced
16:36meal for our kids.
16:42That is so good.
16:44Delicious.
16:46I've been working two years and a half at the Plaza.
16:48This is my daily breakfast.
16:50There's nothing better than that.
16:52I just love it.