What to do with spinach pancakes

My sister tells me that she saw Jamie Oliver demonstrating spinach pancakes on his latest TV series - Veg - and she thought they looked very yummy but did not like the idea of the salsa he put inside and the fried egg he put on top. I believe the above picture is of his pancakes, and I have to agree they do look sort of tempting, but not quite as tempting as the idea. I like the idea of spinach pancakes but often they don't look that great - particularly if they are the smaller thicker variety. Just a bit too green and halloween.

Anyway she asked me what else one could do with them, and so, as I had no other inspirational ideas for today's blog I decided to look into it. And as usual I found a few unexpected things.

So let's start with origins. Well I'm not sure that either Jamie Oliver or any of the other health food writers I found actually derived their inspiration from what seems to be the original - Finnish Pinaattiletut - but I'll begin with a few quick words on this particular variety.

As with virtually all of the kinds of spinach pancakes I found there seem to be two main types - small and large. However, the spinach ones seem to be made with whole bits of spinach chucked into the mix rather than puréed or chopped. Apparently they are a dish that often gets served as part of the hot lunches that kids get in school over there. And they are often served with lingonberry jam (available from Ikea) and sometimes a cabbage salad. Weird, but then again maybe not - I guess it's that sweet and sour kind of thing.

And this is the other unexpected thing that I found when investigating spinach pancakes - they seem to be often served with sweet things. Here are a few examples of that:

And I was amazed at how many recipes there were for Banana and spinach pancakes (this is just one that I found on the Taste website.) - often with reference to smoothies. Do people put spinach and bananas together in smoothies? I guess they might, but it doesn't seem logical to me. But then again lots of these recipe writers claimed that children and toddlers in particular loved them. They probably get served up this way in brunch places.

As for straightforward spinach pancakes and what to do with them, well there are lots of recipes out there - mostly of the thicker American type, but not always. Here are two from Joe Yonan of the Washington Post and from Green Kitchen Stories

I also saw one, I can't remember which now, which claimed that the magic ingredient was some mint. There was also a slight inference here and there that actually they were not that great, although nobody really came out and said as much.

So what to do with them sister dear? Well I made a couple of suggestions which were not very original. Number one, treat them like Italian crespolini - roll them over some kind of filling - most probably a cheesy one, pack them in a baking dish, pour over a sauce, sprinkle cheese on top and bake in the oven. Or similarly, stack them with fillings in between and a sauce poured over the top - with cheese - always cheese - and, again, bake in the oven. Or, if they are thin, roll them up, slice them and add them to stir-fries.

I did find a few others worth mentioning: Green spinach pancakes with soured cream, smoked salmon and dill from Olive, Spinach pancakes, cherry tomato ragout and a poached egg from Allegra McEvedy, and two from Green Kitchen - which has Sweet Potato & Za’atar Pancake Picnic Rolls (a coincidence again - za'atar), and Gruyere, Mustard & Lentil Pancake Melt.

Obviously all of these could be varied.

I really thought the Asians would have had spinach pancakes but I couldn't find any, but then I thought of the Chinese spring onion pancakes. They are rather a different thing really but I found a site with very clear pictures demonstrating how you did it. Can't see why you couldn't substitute spinach for the spring onions.

Chinese spring onion pancakes - China Sichuan Food

So let your imagination and creativity run wild Jenny - go sweet or savoury, simple or complicated, thick or thin, breakfast, dinner or dessert. Who knew you could do so much with spinach pancakes?