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Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Pear Pancake- Quick and Easy Breakfast

You wake up in morning, and the first thing you do is, see outside your window. And this view greets you in the morning.



Well usually it will leave you thinking about the weather adversity here. But everything has something beautiful to offer, it’s the way how you perceive it.




This dense fog would remind me of train journeys back in India especially during winters. The lonesome train running on tracks, steaming through, cutting through the dense fog around it.
Passing by vast green fields, brick homes, ponds, peoples, villages and rivers and running ahead to reach the destination on time.

Now don’t get me wrong if I try to catch a glimpse of that bygone era. Here train journeys are pretty boring and mundane, no “tamasha” or hip-hop happenings or even some comical/interesting fellow passengers.
Back home while travelling in trains, whether you are travelling in Rajdhani or Shatabdi or whatever train you are boarding on. You would always be greeted on early mornings by the “Chaiwalhas” irrespective of your skin color, cast or religion. For him every one is, well, a customer only and he must sell his “Chai” to them.




Even if you try to sleep, covering your head, ear and yourself up well with your sheets/blankets or whatever you have for that matter, the typical sound they make while selling their tea “Chai- Chai”, will leave you craving for hot “Chai”. Such is the temptation that you will have to then reach out for your purse to search “Khuchro/phutkar/chiller” or cents/penny in English. A cup of “Chai” costs around Rs 10 these days may be.

And if you still manage to skip the temptation and have a little bit of sleep, the neighboring passenger would wake you up. And it’s the rule if you like early mornings make sure others don’t sleep late especially in trains.
And if you try to use the bathroom, don’t ever go near to it unless you are in dire needs. The sight of some pot-bellied gentleman brushing teeth will leave you, grumbling in tummy or even worse throw up. And even worse or good, worse for you and of course good for him, he will smile- 32 inch smile ,with all teeth out and say “Bahanji, aap pehle kar lein, hum baad mein brush karenge.” And this La Belle Femme would fume over for mentioning her as "Bahanji". And then she would generally hold back her strong emotions like "kadak chai ".And would generally give a feeble smile holding up semi-digested food in her mouth.
Children especially wake up early and try to sit near the windows. But then we were like that too when we were kids, isn’t?
When “Chaiwallahs” have taken the exit route from the narrow high way.Here comes another round of vendors’ selling peanuts, bhel and Jhaal muri wrapped in old news paper.




And yeah I warn you, don’t ever think about hygiene etc when you want to try out that spicy bhel or tempting jhaal muri they have to offer. Perhaps, one of the best, I have eaten bhel or jhaal muri is always on traveling in trains or perhaps just outside the Victoria Memorial in Kolkata or may be in the adjoining parks of India gate in Delhi. I tried to recreate that flavor many times in home, but I failed.
The entire journey would be one happening place and so many fascinating things will keep captivating your attention. Many of the fellow passengers would be busy playing cards. These days people can be seen sometimes working on laptops with back-ups and many of them listening to I-pods (India you have arrived well much before the commonwealth games). Some even try to face book and tweet through their Blackberries or Strawberries whatever...(See, I have been using these two social net-working sites as verbs, so you can imagine the impact these two have these days)
Well that was a small glimpse of a bygone era. Yeah, it seems ages here where I am sitting right now and typing these words. Some memories never fade away. They keep coming back to you.

Life is sometimes all about recalling all the memories that you have stacked in your mind.
 You stop for sometime, recall the past, pause for few moments, you cry or smile whatever and
Then shrug off and move on to cherish more ahead in life.
But you never live in past, and that’s the way it should be.

Alright then, now it’s the time for the recipe for the day
This is the season when pears are available here plenty. Now, you all know pears can be made into jams or jellies, or in cakes or muffins. Well, since the mood that I am in these days. I try to cook in jiffy.
Using the fruit in pancakes has always worked out well for me. Here you can see- Banana Pancake Cherry Banana pancake .

And now it’s the time for Pear pancake.
Recipe is very simple
Pear Pancakes



Recipe requirements and procedure
1 -2 pear preferably good quality and organics
1 cup of self raising flour
You can use plain flour but then don’t forget to add baking powder also then.
1 egg
About half cup of milk or enough to make the batter
1 tsp of vanilla essence
You can use cinnamon powder in place of vanilla essence for that cinnamon flavor.
Mash well pears wih fork, and then add egg, flour and milk.
Mix together all gently.
Heat up a heavy cast iron skillet/tava.
Drizzle some oil, rub well all over.
Now add 1 tsp-2 tsp of cooking oil.


Scoop out one full ladle of the batter and smear it well like small rounds.
Let the bubble form. Flip the side if you see bubble.
Cook another 2 mints.Each pancakes takes approx 3-4 mints at medium flame to cook.
Serve hot with butter or maple syrup or honey or even condensed milk.
About 1 cup of self raising flour makes approx medium size 5-7 pancakes.

And dont forget to send in your entries to Chalks and Chopsticks-6.Details are - Click Here .

Happy cooking friends

7 comments:

  1. Jaya,

    Tui likhte badhho korish manush ke...aito shundor thoughts, memories...the simple joy and enthusiasm about simple things in life such as a typical train journey of the 70's thru the 90's...I have to say that even India is not the same anymore.
    You are right its how we perceive, is how things appear to us.
    Lovely idea for a pancake too...best wishes for more such ideas and great posts!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Delicious pancake..looks so good

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  3. Joyeeta,
    kemon acho, onek bhalo laglo tumake eyikhane likhte dekhe..majhe-2 eyi bhabhe chole ashbe , besh bhalo lagey :-)..hugs..

    Suja,
    Thanks dear!

    Priya,
    Thanks dear!
    hugs and smiles to all of you

    ReplyDelete
  4. nice clicks..pancake looks so delicious..

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sarah and notye100,

    thanks for coming here
    hugs and smiles

    ReplyDelete

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