Phat Tuesday

Yesterday was Fat Tuesday, so naturally we dove into a pancake dinner. Good times.  We aren’t much for plain pancakes around here — I’m all about the chocolate chip, my wife’s into the banana and/or chocolate chip variety.

Naturally we are right-thinking people and build this around Alton Brown’s Buttermilk Pancake recipe, found over yonder at the Food TV site.  I grew up on the Bisquick variety, so the conversion to this one is extra-welcome, and definitely worth the very minor extra steps (composing your own mix, acquiring buttermilk, separating the eggs).

Some notes:

• Served ‘em up with sausage links. We already do bacon in the oven, and recently converted over to doing sausage in the oven as well. It’s very effective and, with a little foil used, cleans up right quick. Highly recommended.
• Vermont Grade B Maple Syrup. Accept no substitutes. It’s like the bold complex red wine of syrups.  We serve ours in one of those plastic “ketchup bottle” dispensers — every kitchen should have, like, twelve of those things, because there’s all sorts of stuff that’s not ketchup or mustard that works really well with them.
• My wife mixes the chocolate chips into the batter. While there’s a risk that they’ll sink to the bottom, this means the chips are coated with the batter and less likely to burn onto your griddle.
• Use actual buttermilk.  I hear folks get “just fine” results using milk and lemon juice as a substitute (the juice provides the acid that the buttermilk normally does, key for activating the ingredients in the mix), but it can cause the pancakes to turn out a bit thinner than you might want.

And some pictures.