Name: Onion and herb pancakes
Prep time: 15 min
Total time: 25 min
Yield: 3 servings
Ingredients: 180 g Plain flour; 6 g Baking powder; 25 g Onion (dried, flakes); 3 g Mixed herbs (dried); 4 g Salt (fine); 45 ml Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed); 2 g Black pepper (ground)

Onion and herb pancakes

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Plain flour.

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves

Burners

Pans

Water

0.3 L

Active

15 min

Total

25 min

Ingredients

Plain flour 180 g
Baking powder 6 g
Onion (dried, flakes) 25 g
Mixed herbs (dried) 3 g
Salt (fine) 4 g
Vegetable oil (sunflower or rapeseed) 45 ml
Black pepper (ground) 2 g

Rehydrate the onion first. Cover the dried onion with 60 ml of just-boiled water and leave it ten minutes while you do everything else. Straight into the batter dry it stays hard and tastes dusty.

Onion soaking.
Flour, baking powder, herbs, salt and pepper mixed.
The onion with its soaking water, plus another 150 ml of water, beaten in to a batter about the thickness of double cream.
Hot pan, a generous film of oil. A ladleful spread to about 5 mm.
Three minutes until the edges look dry and set, then turn. Two more.

More oil than feels reasonable is correct. These should fry rather than dry-cook, and the crisp edge is the best part.

Baking powder loses strength after about a year, which is the one thing in this cupboard that genuinely goes off in a way you notice. If they come out flat and dense, that is usually why.

Makes about 6, serving 3.

What this was adapted from

Savoury griddle pancakes: the scallion pancake and the socca, in a single-pan form

fresh spring onion, and a rested batter → rehydrated dried onion, and baking powder for lift

Scallion pancakes get their character from fresh onion through a laminated dough, which is an hour of work. Dried onion rehydrated into a quick batter with baking powder gives a softer, thicker pancake in ten minutes -- a different thing entirely, sharing only the idea.