All Things We’re Cooking — Part 2: Making Specken dicken on a griddle for a favorite family memory of Grandma Velma
The series All Things We’re Cooking includes family recipes from you, our readers and listeners, as well as special stories behind them. We’ll continue to share more of your kitchen gems throughout the holidays.
When Erin Rhode’s Grandma Velma died in August, she was tasked with putting together a video remembrance. Grandma Velma lived to be 93. She had a lot of photos taken, but not a lot of videos.
Still, Rhode unearthed a favorite family memory from 2010. That was the year when her Uncle Bob, who wasn’t known for spending much time in the kitchen, decided he wanted to learn how to make specken dicken, the thick sausage-filled German pancakes the family eats every New Year’s Day.
“I took video of this for some reason, like I think I knew at the time that this was a big family tradition and we want more than just the notecard,” Rhode said. The clips that I used in the video for her memorial have a description of the batter that says it must be thickly thin. Not thin, not thick.”
The video also showed Uncle Bob’s mishap as he tried to thin the batter and ended up spilling it all over the counter just as Grandma Velma returned to the kitchen to discover the sloppy scene.
Rhode is fairly certain Uncle Bob hasn’t attempted to make the graham flour pancakes since then, but the same can’t be said for the rest of the family.
These days, the large gatherings aren’t as common, but Grandma Velma’s children still make specken dicken for their families and send photos of the final product to the family group chat.
Once the batter and meat are ready, it’s time to prepare the specken dicken on the griddle. The pan must be oiled first. Next, arrange three or four rope sausage/kielbasa slices into a group on the griddle, leaving space between them. If you keep doing this, the griddle will be full and you will have enough room for each group of sausage to make one pancake. The sausage should be completely covered by the 1 cup of pancake batter centered over each group. cakes are about 4 inches in diameter, but use your best judgement
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“It’s never something I’ve made by myself because I couldn’t possibly eat them [all],” Rhode said, although they do freeze well. “In fact, even when we make them just for the four of us … We have to frozen my mom and dad and my sister.
You’ll need to drink a bottle of dark Karo corn syrup if you want to eat specken dicken the way grandma Velma did, though Rhode claims she prefers maple syrup.
She said it just tastes like a pancake with sausage in it, but somehow it tastes better because it’s all mixed together. “And the smell kind of reminds me of Grandma’s kitchen, even if we make it to, you know, my mom’s house.”
Take some sausage and place them evenly on top of the pancake, while the pancake and sausage/kielbasa are frying. When they’re done on the first side, flip them over and cook the second side, baking both sets of sausage into the pancake.
While stirring the batter will be the right thickness where it pours smooth but doesn’t run. If you have a shortage of buttermilk you can finish with regular milk.
Serve warm with syrup (Karo extra dark or maple syrup, depending on your preference). pancakes can be kept in the oven for a while to make sure you can eat them if you want to. Uneaten pancakes go in the refrigerator or freezer to be eaten cold later.
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