I was on the phone to a friend of mine the other day and our conversation got sidetracked to talk about a TV series called "Jamie's Dream School". (You can watch it on Youtube.) Jamie Oliver, the chef, tries to fix the lives of 20 teenage school dropouts. This is his new campaign after he tried to educate fat people in the UK and in the States on what and how to eat. (Would 'obese" or 'people with substance' be politer? I don't think so.)
In this series he brings in some of the most accomplished and celebrated people to teach school subjects in a classroom of 20 unruly teenagers. My friend's comment was, "The whole thing is an insult to teachers. Jamie Oliver is already loaded, and there's a better way to tackle this issue." I'm sure there are better ways to give these teenagers a second chance and I'm sure some teachers feel insulted. Maybe he should have stayed where he was in cooking, but it's quite hard for me to fault his wholeheartedness.
What is interesting to me, more than Jamie Oliver's motives, is how on earth these teenagers have become like that - half a dozen of particular kids have absolutely no respect to anyone nor anything. It was extremely unpleasant to watch them and they were literally like savages. It can't be just a combination of education system, parenting, and personal circumstances that makes sweet new-born babies into that.
Everybody is a victim of circumstances with varying degrees, but we all try to move on and we do. I'm curious to know what has made these kids keep on wallowing (unconsciously) in self-pity and think that they can afford to destroy everything inside them and outside. Maybe it is to do with the level of inborn ability to think, i.e. intelligence, after all. I don't know and I want to think about this a bit more. When I come to some sort of conclusion I will write about it then :)
This recipe is pinched from Ottolenghi's new(ish) book, called 'Plenty'. His title for this delicious pancakes is "Green Pancakes with Lime Butter". The way I cooked is slightly different from his method, and here is my version.
Ingredients (for 3-4 people):
(for the pancakes)
250g spinach
110g self-raising flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 egg
50g butter, melted
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon of ground cumin
150ml milk
6 spring onions, finely sliced
2 fresh green (I only had red) chillies, finely sliced
1 egg white
(for lime butter)
100g butter, soft
grated zest of 1 lime
1 and a half tablespoon of lime juice
1 tablespoon of fresh coriander
1/2 garlic clove, minced
a pinch of chilli flakes
Make lime butter first. Beat the butter in a bowl until soft and creamy and stir in the rest of the ingredients. Transfer the butter to a small serving bowl and chill in the fridge.
Boil a pan of hot water. Turn off the heat and dunk all the spinach. Stir it around until it starts to wilt. Tip the spinach into a sieve and run cold tap water briefly to stop it cooking. Squeeze as much water as possible from the spinach and roughly chop.
For the pancake batter, put the flour, baking powder, cumin, whole egg, melted butter, and milk into a large bowl and season with salt and black pepper. Whisk until smooth. Add the spring onions, chillies, and spinach. Mix well. Whisk the egg white to soft peaks and gently fold it into the batter.
Heat a bit of olive oil in a large frying pan on a medium heat. Ladle 2 tablespoon of batter for each pancake and press gently. You would want pancakes a bit smaller than your palm. Cook about 2 minutes on each side.
Get the flavoured butter out of the fridge, cut a chunk of it, and place it on top of hot pancakes. Can you see the butter melting on a pancake in the picture?