Girls and Pancakes

Hinamatsuri is a celebration for the little ladies; “girls’ day”, or “doll’s day” in Japan. There’s also a corresponding “boys’ day” later on in the year, but that’s gradually just become a “children’s day”, so hinamatsuri is a particularly lovely little reminder to appreciate the young ladies.

One of my co-workers made her daughter some colourful sushi, a traditional meal on the day. Other typical hinamatsuri ingestibles include shirozake, which is a type ofsake made from fermented rice and hishimochi, a diamond-shaped colored rice cake. So, while I couldn’t get out to any shrines to see a display of the ningyo (sets of dolls that represent the Imperial Palace’s occupants during the Heian period), I paid my respects by visiting a local Baskin Robbins for ice cream. I’m not being entirely facetious, for although it’s not exactly a traditional food, Baskin Robbins is doing a special set of ice cream “dolls” to capitalize on the festival. The deal was a set of five scoops of ice cream topped with little faces and accessories.

As usual, Japan thinks of all the small details – the set was served in a box that imitates the platform on which the dolls are displayed in a shrine. 

Ningyo, to go into a little more detail, are traditional wooden dolls. Unlike daruma, which are essentially spherical and simply, but brightly painted, ningyo are more elaborate. The typical hina doll will be wearing more kimono than a Japanese person even owns. They’re as realistic as possible – some even have human hair! A complete set of dolls has 15 characters, representing different courtly characters, but as long as one has the basic Emperor-Empress/male-female pair, that’s also deemed acceptable.

Crunching uncouthly on the ningyo's face

I don’t think we could have handled fifteen scoops of ice-cream, though had the opportunity arisen, I’m sure my appetite would have valiantly risen to the challenge. I certainly felt as though I deserved the ice-cream, since I got lost cycling there, and took a good 40 minutes pedaling around before I found the place! Instead, we settled for a doll each, and then I followed it up with a triple scoop of matcha, choc chip mint and oreo chop chip. And a free taster of Amaretto chocolate. Thank you, Baskin Robbins. Thank you.

It can only be bought in sets, it’s ¥1,700 for 5 cups. Check the Baskin Robbins website for the nearest location near you. Kotaku has some more information on it!

Before and after?

Now, the following day was of course the 4^th of March, which will be familiar to many people in the Western hemisphere colloquially as “Fat Tuesday” (oh you Americans), or “Pancake Day” (oh us Britons), or perhaps more correctly, “Shrove Tuesday”. For the less Catholic of us, it’s the day before Lent, a month of restraint and appreciation leading up to Easter. Many people give up desserts, sweets, or bad habits. However, the day before the 5^th (Ash Wednesday) is a free-for-all. In England, this means pancakes. So, I went from celebrating with ice-cream, to pancakes.

A good friend of mine, Amelia, invited myself and a few others over. We went all out – a good twenty eggs, five packs of bacon, mushrooms galore, spinach, whipped cream, a good half kilo of strawberries, and we even had sprinkles! We doubled a random recipe that we found online and still ended up with the same amount of pancakes, but it was just the right amount for the five of us. The amazing Sushi-chan did a fantastic job pancake flipping, ramped up our kitchen skills by making two batches of pancakes, one normal wheat-base, and the other gluten-free.

These gluten-free pancakes are ridiculously easy to make. I sourced the recipe from The Skinny Confidential. While I didn’t have any flaxseed, I think they still turned out pretty well. The edges look burned, but I couldn’t taste the char at all, so I’m wondering whether it’s just the way the ingredients react. Where is my McGee On Food and Cooking when I need it?

With a few deliberately blackened bananas, we tossed one into the blender, added two eggs, and blended the whole thing. This is literally the entire recipe. TLDR? Kind of impossible, but here ya go…

Ingredients:

1 banana

2 eggs.

Blend. Put oil in pan. Heat pan. Cook in frying pan. Makes one face-sized pancake (unless you have a super tiny or huge face, sorry, I lied)

It doesn’t get much simpler than that, really! I think it works best this way for sweet pancakes. If I were to remake it with savoury toppings, I’d add a few herbs in and a pinch of salt. It tastes banana-y, but not overwhelmingly so, so it’s a nice plain base, as long as you’re not averse to a hint of banana complementing whatever you decide to top it with.

One savoury, one sweet.

For the purposes of the photo, I tried to make a bacon face, I don’t think it worked very well though. After this, I piled on the bacon and vegetables like no tomorrow. There’s also a small hoard of cheese melting nicely underneath the pancake. A proper Paleo indulgence!

Quizu over and out~