How to Turn a Fridge Full of Sad Foods Into Lunch
We all gazed at the sad empty refrigerator on a weekday night when it was too late for grocery shopping, wishing for some higher power to magically fill the shelves while our eyes were closed.
Welcome to Cheap Chow Week ! Food is now more expensive than it ever was, and it might seem like the only cost-effective options for you are fast food or instant ramen. But it doesn’t have to be that way. This week, we’ll show you how to buy, prepare, and eat food in a cost-effective way without sacrificing pleasure or taste.
Using what you have is a great way to save money and minimize waste, but many empty fridge recipes quickly outperform what people actually store in pantries, making them minimally useful at best. The staples in the pantry are different for everyone, and when these recipes require cheese, lemons, anchovies, fresh herbs, or the like, I usually roll my eyes. As much as I love these things and try to keep them with me, sometimes I get something like one carrot, a handful of green onions, which for some reason did not turn into mucus, sweet potatoes of an undetermined age, quickly softening bell peppers. And the refrigerator door groans under the weight of my addiction to seasonings. Throw in intense hunger and a budget that can’t support another pizza delivery and I’m on my way to Meltdown City.
And again introduce Maangchi , which has expanded my repertoire in countless ways. As a depressed person who sometimes struggles not to feel worthy not to starve to death, I haven’t been (in a good way!) Since I found her recipe for yachaejong , spring vegetable pancakes. This is a sad fridge recipe to end all sad fridge recipes: not only does it use whatever random foods you have, it turns them into something incredibly good. These are not fluffy hotcakes piled with leftover boiled broccoli or whatever – these are crispy, salty, fried foods that are mostly made with vegetables. All you need to make them is about a pound of thinly sliced vegetables plus flour, water, salt and a little oil for frying; no eggs, no leaven, no milk, and no bullshit.
Facts are facts, America: Not everyone stocks up on canned Sicilian anchovies or fresh parsley for a rainy day, but most people probably have a cup of flour somewhere. In addition, most people in the kitchen have a faucet from which drinking water comes (although even in this country of supposed abundance this is still not true for everyone ), a pinch of salt and a little vegetable oil. If you have these things and a refrigerator full of sad food, you can cook something delicious in a very short time. Here’s how to do it.
Vegetable pancakes from an empty refrigerator
It bears repeating that you can use just about any vegetables you like, as long as at least one of them is onions (shallots are my favorite). Otherwise, go for it: Strong greens like kale and kale are great, but spinach, kale, or even lettuce work fine if you chop them finely. Root crops must be peeled with a knife; everything else should be cut into strips or cut as thinly as possible. If you’re not using gluten, I recommend GF All-Purpose Flour Blend instead of cornstarch or potato starch, which is fried with a crisp at the edges but gets weird and sticky on the inside.
As written, this recipe makes five large pancakes or ten to twelve small ones. Feel free to scale vegetables and flour / water up and down according to your needs; if you have the same ratio of vegetables to dough, you will be fine.
Ingredients:
- 1 ½ lb (680 grams) vegetable platter, including some onions
- ¾ cup (about 100 g, depending on brand) all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon table salt
- ¾ cup (about 175 ml) water
- Vegetable or canola oil for surface frying (I rarely use more than a quarter cup)
Instructions:
While cooking vegetables, place a wide, heavy-bottomed skillet over low heat. A good non-stick skillet is great if you have one, but I usually cook mine in a 9-inch cast iron or stainless steel skillet. If I make more than two pancakes, I use my twelve-inch and nine-inch cast iron pans in tandem.
Chop, chop julienne, tape, or otherwise chop the vegetables very finely into a large bowl. The thinner the slices, the more likely the dough will fold and flip over beautifully.
Add flour and water to a bowl, then season with half a teaspoon of salt. If you want to add dried spices, now is the time. Stir until the batter is completely distributed over the vegetables, using your hands if necessary to really mix everything together.
Raise the heat under the skillet to medium-high, wait a minute, then add enough vegetable or canola oil to coat the bottom. Continue heating the oil until it starts to flicker and almost smokes, then add handfuls of the vegetable dough to the pan, letting excess liquid drain back into the mixing bowl. If you’re making small pancakes, you’ll probably place two or three in a 9-inch skillet, but I prefer making plate-sized pancakes.
Using a sturdy spatula, break the pancakes into thin discs and cook for at least three minutes on each side, or as long as it takes to form a dark golden brown crust. I make very large pancakes, so sometimes they sit for up to five minutes. Check often and adjust the temperature if it seems too high.
When the first side is crispy to your liking, gently turn the pancakes over with a spatula or flip-up stew. (My cast iron pans are superbly aged, but not enough to flip perfect – I wouldn’t try this without a nonstick skillet.) Add a little oil to the pan and lift the edges to distribute it evenly, then cook until completely brown on this side too.
Transfer to a wire rack on a baking sheet and reheat in a low (200 degrees Fahrenheit) oven if desired, or serve as soon as they come out of the mold. Sprinkle them with salt while they’re hot and nibble on the crispy edge to make sure they’re good. (They are always like this, but it doesn’t hurt to check.)
Depending on which vegetables you choose, you can use these pancakes in any culinary direction you can think of. Cabbage, Swiss chard, onions, chopped herbs, and some crumbled feta make a neat little spanakopita- esque pancake; plain old onions and potatoes make extra-light, extra-crunchy roasts. Regardless of the content, I usually stay true to the spirit of the Maangchi recipe and serve mine with rice, soy sauce, chili garlic sauce and, if I have them, poached eggs .