A birthday picnic and a spring onion lightbulb moment

Yesterday, we were invited by one of The Husband’s friends to celebrate their son’s 6th picnic birthday treat at the Dubai Creek Park to partake in a feast of Filipino food treats and a two-layer Ben 10 themed birthday cake, to frolic on the grass and be silly with the kids, and to be blown away by magic tricks of a big fat clown. This is one of the things so beautifully ironic about this desert city. There are public parks with ponds and rolling greenery found in almost every community. And birthday picnics at the park are one of my favorite Dubai activities. Do you know why?

The sunshine? Yes, it’s given that we live in a land with endless streams of sunshine. But the sunshine is not the reason. The fresh air? Don’t you find it surprising for a city to actually have fresh air. No smog in sight! And neither is the fresh air.

How about the greenery? I welcome anything green and teeming with life with open arms, a treat against the dry barren desert landscape, but I am sorry to say that this is not the reason why I love birthday picnics. Can you already guess the real reason why I love, love, love birthday picnics?

The Dubai picnics, at least the ones I’ve been to so far, are legendary for the take away. This is the reason why I love birthday picnics. You’ve read it right, take away at birthday picnics!

I love the mad rush of the guests to the buffet table with plastic containers and tin foil in hand. I love the boisterous laughter from jokes about whose containers were bursting with food. Sadly, The Husband is always the butt of these jokes; but he remains to be totally unapologetic about it. Though the others are already learning from the take away master and catching up with their share of birthday picnic take away. Who doesn’t enjoy “free” food right?

Yesterday, one of the spoils of take away war that we were able to loot was a plastic tub of chopped spring onions.

To be honest, I really had no idea what to do with all around 2 cups of spring onions. But earlier, for some serendipitous reason, I thought of Korean spring onion pancakes. I then googled for a recipe, the ingredients of which were actually available in our wee pantry. Thank you Kitchen God!

This recipe I adapted from famous food blogger and American in Paris, David Lebovitz. I modified it a slightly, which actually turned out great. This dish actually comes with a dipping sauce, but with my modification, I think you can do without it.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup of all-purpose flour
  

  We still don't have measuring cups, so I improvise!

• 3/4 cup of cold water
• 1 teaspoon of salt.
• 2-4 cups of chopped spring onion. I personally prefer to have even more spring onions if you can.
• 4 teaspoons of sweet soy sauce.
• 1 table spoon of cooking oil. Or you can lessen the oil if you’re using a non-stick pan.
• 3 small eggs or 1 extra-large egg, slightly beaten.
• Optional: 1 cup of chopped shrimp or squid.

Step-by-step:

1. Mix the flour, cold water and salt in a bowl until it reaches a pancake batter-like consistency. Set aside.
2. Saute the spring onions for around 3-minutes on the hot oiled pan. Then add the sweet soy sauce and cook for another 2-3 minutes. Spread the spring onion and sweet soy sauce mixture evenly in the pan.
   

   Sauteed spring onions and sweet soy sauce

3. Pour the pancake batter into the pan and spread evenly. Then cook for 5-minutes until the bottom is golden.
   

   The marriage of the batter and spring onion-sweet sauce mixture

4. Pour the beaten eggs onto the top of the pancake and cook for 2-minutes. Optional: add shrimp / squid and spread evenly across the pancake.
5. Flip the pancake on its backside and cook for another 5-minutes.
6. Cut the pancakes into 8-slices and serve hot as an appetizer or eat as bar chow with an ice cold bottle of beer.

I really didn’t know that this Korean treat was so easy to make! From now on, all unused tubs of spring onions for take away from birthday picnics are always welcome!

Delirious about delicious,

Didi