Salmon Herbed Pikelets - An Heirloom Recipe Series

Extra Food Chat with Kath

Welcome to another Heirloom Recipe on Extra Food Chat with Kath!

Here is another savoury recipe from Grandma’s collection for you. This one could come in handy over the upcoming festive season if you use the recipe as my Grandma did when she had people over.

Take a listen to the voice note below for a bit more chatter on this recipe, and please let me know if you like this new addition to these newsletters (or not!).

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I have very vague memories of my Grandma making pikelets. I recall she had an electric fry pan, and she would use that often to cook things, pikelets included. I actually don’t remember her using the stove as much as I remember her using the electric fry pan.

I remember my Mum making pikelets more than I remember my Grandma making them. Mum used a recipe from a Commonsense Cookery Book my Grandma had given my Dad when he moved out of home. I really doubt he used it, but Mum did. For a few years we couldn’t find the book, and recently came across it, sans cover but with the spine still in tact. We’d been looking for a book with a blue cover, so it was really under our noses the whole time!

I don’t remember my Grandma making these savoury pikelets, but my Mum does. Mum said Grandma made these as finger food when she had people over. I assume Grandma made them a bit smaller than I have, as mine would be rather filling served as finger food!

Based on the fact that every time I type the work ‘pikelets’ my computer very much wishes to spell check it to something else (‘piglets’ and ‘pike lets’ has come up a few times now), I am getting the impression pikelets are not a common thing around the world. Maybe they are a bit of an Australian thing? More research is needed to confirm that one, but pikelets being much smaller mostly bite sized, are similar to a pancake but are restrained and delicate compared to a stack of large American style pancakes.

These pikelets are of course savoury and not really intended for breakfast like pancakes are, though I can imagine these being lovely brunch fare as much as they can be a canapé or afternoon snack.

Similar to pancakes, pikelets are made from a simple batter, though the difference being a pikelet batter will generally be thicker than batter made for pancakes or crepes. Smallish dollops of pikelet batter are then cooked on a fry pan or skillet with butter. Depending on the size of pan you are using, they shouldn’t take very long to cook. If you have an electric fry pan like my Grandma did, you can use that to cook your pikelets too.

Like just about every handwritten recipe I have from my Grandma, I am not sure where these Salmon Herbed Pikelets originally came from. I will probably get sick of saying that (and you’ll probably be sick of reading it!) after I’ve gone through a few more of these heirloom recipes. It’s a constant throughout this process, that I know so little about where these recipes came from and if my Grandma made them regularly or not.

I can only base my knowledge on my childhood memories, which of course are not full since I was only a child. I never thought to ask where the recipes came from, I naively just thought of them as Grandma’s back then. My Grandma wasn’t a very open communicative person, and I never felt comfortable asking many questions. I always felt, even as a young child, that it wouldn’t necessarily be welcomed. Grandma often gave short, dismissive answers to things, like the answer wasn’t interesting or maybe she didn’t like talking about things (maybe both?).

Either way it always gave me the feeling she didn’t want to talk, about anything. Sometimes I think it was her coping mechanism. My coping mechanism is often baking, so making things like these pikelets suits me well even if I have little context for how the recipe fit into my Grandma’s life. They are a quick and easy thing to make, so I hope they will find a place in your kitchen too.