Sourdough is a fickle mistress. As near as I can tell, she lures you in with one early success, and then a series of doorstops and roofing tiles follow in the kind of randomized-reward trial they once employed to confuse pigeons and young primates in university studies before there were ethics committees rightfully engaged in preventing that.

The only thing I can reliably produce besides an overheated brain and hastily-scrawled notes on the backs of envelopes that I promptly lose is gallons (OK, pints—this is an emotional subject that puts me at risk for overstating things) of “discard” starter. Flour is as rare as hen’s tears right now. Food is all we think about in ways that recall painting stocking seams on the backs of our slender calves! I’M NOT DISCARDING ANY FOODS.

Please note that this is emphatically not a plea for tips on making sourdough bread successfully; kudos to you if you’ve mastered it, but please hold your friendly fire there. The airwaves are thick with expert resources, some of whom I number among my personal friends, and few of whom agree exactly. I have more suggestions and information, in hard copy, digitally-encoded, and video formats to parse than I can handle. Near as I can tell, sourdough is a personal journey rife with drama, through vales of tears and over summits of joy, dependent on mystical forces of personal humidity and ambient pH and past-life karmic burdens and please, dear generous persons, do not refer me to another methodologist.

For obvious reasons, I am also not offering any tips for sourdough baking. You’re on your own there.

What I am offering is a way to use the “discard” that is hardly any work and so far 100% reliable. It uses copious volumes of it, and unlike the poker chip crackers I have been trying to palm off on the dogs, the product disappears instantly and just creates more demand so you can do it all over again and no one (to date) gets tired of it.

SCALLION PANCAKES, Y’ALL.

I watched a YouTube video that I would credit here if I could, if there were a way do it without getting lost in a thicket of my sad, sad watch history of lies, wherein someone broadcasting from a loft apartment in the Brooklyn area suggested a person could make a scallion pancake from straight starter. Just discard it right into the frying pan, pausing only to get a scallion all up in it. I tried that and found it a little intense for my tastes. I fiddled around with additional flour and an ultimately magical tiny pinch of sugar, and that did the trick.

This is probably a good time to say that well-fermented, good-quality wheat is digestible to some of us with gluten sensitivity. Isn’t that amazing? Paint my seams and call me happy. Food worked before we systematized the nature right out of it, and these glory days can be recalled. Look here for awesome small-mill resources. I get my flour here and here. And I will also say that the lovely Sarah Owens guided me to a very successful and highly repeatable gluten-free sourdough loaf, via her book Heirloom.

I use rice flour when I make the pancakes, because the new flour that the pancakes demand would not be fermented and thus would cause me a peck of trouble, but also: rice flour is delicious. I keep myself stocked up on Thai rice flour because is very finely ground, not even remotely gritty, and it is not hard to find; widely available at Asian markets in person or online. (Note that is is different from sticky or sweet rice flour, which also has a lot of good uses but would make these pancakes very glooby.) I am sure you can use regular rice flour, white or brown, in place of the Thai stuff. You can also probably use wheat flour instead. If you try that and it works, THAT would be sourdough-related information I’d like to hear about.

Ok. Pancakes. You just merrily discard all you are mandated to discard by whomever you are worshiping, into a jar you keep in the fridge. When you have a cup of it, you are ready to party. If you don’t have a scallion and you do have a yard and it is overrun with chives, or a garden and it is full of garlic shoots, use those. These are trying times and we can define “scallion” loosely. Or just use greens or a mix of vegetables, okonomiyaki-style (that word actually translates to “how you like it.”). Whatever makes you feel calm.

sourdough scallion pancakes

makes about a dozen

1 cup room-temperature “discard” sourdough starter
1/2 cup water
1 cup rice flour (see note above)
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
a pinch of sugar
about a cup of chopped chives or scallions
about 3 tablespoons of canola or other neutral oil, for frying

to serve:

2 tablespoons tamari or shoyu
2 tablespoons brown rice or other mild vinegar
1-2 teaspoons gochujang or other spicy mixture, or red pepper flakes, if you like a little heat
1-2 teaspoons minced fresh cilantro

Whisk together the starter and water, then whisk in the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar, then finally the scallions.

Heat about two tablespoons of the oil in a skillet until a drop of the batter sizzles on contact. Ladle about a half cup of batter per pancake into the hot oil and cook until the surface bubbles pop and the top is nearly dry, the underside brown and crisp. Flip and brown the second side, and then remove to paper towels to drain briefly. Replenish the oil as needed as you work through the remaining batter; the goal is not to deep fry, but just to keep the pan surface nicely slick and the oil quite hot.

Stir the sauce ingredients together, and serve the pancakes immediately with a little dish of sauce to dip them in.