This recipe is riffed from Ottolenghi’s Green Pancakes in his wonderful book, Plenty. Don’t be tempted to remove either the chili or the butter and egg white from the recipe. The chili gives a very moderate and welcome amount of heat. The butter keeps the batter from being too sticky and gives it a lovely brown crust. The egg white gives some lift and crisps the edges. I don’t cook the chard ahead of time.  It removes a step for a faster dinner and helps keep some structure and nutrition in the pancakes.

Lots of different salads would dress these pancakes up nicely. Originally, I used the apple kohl-slaw but any salad of grated carrots or zucchini or radishes would be nice.

• 3/4 C all purpose flour
• 1 T baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1/2 stick butter, melted
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 2/3 C buttermilk
• 1 shallot, thinly sliced
• 1 serano chili, thinly sliced (with the seeds)
• 1 bunch swiss chard, cut into thin ribbons (reserve the stems for the salad)
• 1 egg white

1. Combine flour, baking powder and salt
2. Whisk the egg white until very frothy and standing in loose peaks
3. Add the egg, melted butter and buttermilk
4. Add the shallot, chili, swiss chard and egg white and fold in with a spatula
5. In a non-stick pan (or a regular one with olive oil for frying) fry off the pancakes until golden brown on each side. I like making one big pancake per person.