Jo’s spring pancake

Ingredients

• Flowering tops of kale
• Mustard leaf
• Warragul greens
• Fermented soy beans (see note)
• Sichuan pepper
• 1 clove of preserved garlic (see note)
• An egg
• Rice flour, or other flour of choice
• Water
• Chilli sauce to serve (see note)
• Leaf salad to serve, made with whatever fresh leaves you have (see note)

Method

Wash your greens then chop them up, and add to your mixing bowl

Add a few good tablespoons of fermented soybeans to your chopped greens.

Toast your Sichuan peppercorns in a dry pan until fragrant, then grind them up in a mortar and pestle or spice-grinder. Add a teaspoon or so of Sichuan pepper to your bowl of salad greens.

Grate your garlic into the bowl.

Add a cracked egg into the bowl.

Add enough flour to bind the mixture – about 3 heaped tablespoons, depending on your quantity of greens.

Mix everything together in the bowl.

Heat your fry pan over medium heat and add in a tablespoon of oil.

Add a few good tablespoons per pancake into your heated pan. You should be able to fit about four pancakes in your pan.• Cook a few minutes, until brown underneath, then flip your pancake.

You know they’re ready if you push them down with your finger and they feel dense. If they squish out when you press them, they’re not ready.

Serve with a simple leaf salad and a good tablespoon of your preferred chilli sauce.

Notes:

• Jo and Matt made their own fermented soybeans by adding koji, chilli and some aromatics, including cinnamon, to their cooked soybeans harvested at futurefoodsystem. You can also purchase fermented soybeans from any Asian grocer.
• Jo and Matt preserved their garlic by cooking it at 70 degrees. This creates a sweeter, more intense flavour in the garlic, but you can use raw garlic, it will just be spicier.
• Jo’s chilli sauce is house-made. To make it, toast fenugreek seeds and age them in apple cider vinegar, then cooked with onions (shallots), heaps of chilli flakes and preserved tomatoes from summer. You can make your own chilli sauce, or you can use a store-bought one.
• Jo doesn’t like her salads with too much dressing when the leaves have come straight from the garden and taste fresh and delicious by themselves. She uses just a squeeze of lemon and a splash of oil, with a sprinkle of salt and pepper. You can use any leaves, but for this salad they picked some Amish Deer Tongue, some bitter greens (like chicory) and fresh coriander. Amish Deer Tongue is an heirloom variety of green available from The Diggers Club within Australia.