- I made some food so spicy, his nose was running.
Everybody knows that Nipsey loves spicy food.
His eyes was watering and I was like,
"Oh my gosh. Did I make it too spicy?"
He was like, "I like it," blowing his nose.
I was like, "Woo, okay, well, as long as you're cool,
then I'm cool."
Hi, my name is Kayla Greer,
former chef to Drake, Migos,
and the late great Nipsey Hussle.
Today we're gonna be making lemon ricotta pancakes
with the Nipsey Hussle blueberry creme fraiche.
This is one of his favorite meals
and I want you guys to try this at home too.
(upbeat music)
I decided to make these pancakes
because when I think about Nipsey,
I think about all the long nights
that turned into early mornings
and me getting a phone call to come cook breakfast
at the studio.
This is one of his favorite things
and I can't wait to share it with you guys.
Cool, so let's get straight into it.
Everybody knows that lemon and blueberry
goes together perfectly.
So this is my take on blueberries and lemon.
It's very simple.
All we're gonna do is just put everything
in a bowl and mix it up together.
So here we have some frozen blueberries,
a little bit of creme fraiche, cream cheese, and vanilla.
It's as simple as mixing everything
in the bowl and setting it to the side.
All right, so we have our frozen blueberries.
And I like to use this
because they're just a little juicier.
It gives it color and it's easy to just have on hand.
So we'll put that in our bowl.
That's our cream cheese.
Creme fraiche makes it nice and fluffy.
And then vanilla.
That's about a half a teaspoon of vanilla,
but you can never add too much vanilla in my opinion.
So once you have everything in your bowl
you're gonna use your electric hand mixer
and mix it until everything is incorporated.
(upbeat music)
So now that we've mixed our blueberry creme fraiche,
we're going to put it in a makeshift piping bag.
Some of us aren't bakers
and we don't just have piping bags laying around at home,
so you can always make a piping bag
by getting a Ziploc and a tall cup.
You wanna just push it down inside, fold it over.
So we're just going to put this right inside.
Pull it up so it's no mess.
You can get it all down to one side.
You just wanna push it down.
Just like a piping bag.
I like to just twirl it like this. Awesome.
So, when you have that done and ready
you can just set that to the side
and start working on your pancakes.
Let's get into making the batter for our pancakes.
We have here buttermilk, flour, ricotta,
baking soda, baking powder, sugar,
salt, melted butter, lemons.
And we will also be using the zest from the lemons.
So, I'm gonna start with our flour,
and our baking soda and baking powder.
We'll do our sugar. Pinch of salt.
And give that a quick stir.
Now, I also like to add my lemon zest
to our dry mixture.
There's two ways you can zest the lemon, right?
So you can zest the lemon like this.
And sometimes you have to like, watch your fingers
and nails and it gets a little hard that way.
Or you can do it under,
and zest it like that.
So we're gonna zest one lemon.
And while I'm zesting this, let's get into a quick story.
Ha, where do I start? Oh my gosh.
First of all, rest in peace to a absolute legend.
Like, you're amazing. I miss you so much.
Wow, this is just one of the many things
that I would make for Nip.
He was one of my favorite clients,
just creatively, and a friend turned client.
Granted we're from the same neighborhood,
so I knew him before I started cooking for him.
I started cooking this for him
just because he would be at the studio,
like, early in the morning, like just there all day.
He loved flavors and he loved things that were different.
He liked the creative side of food,
and I think that's how these,
we got into making these pancakes.
We didn't want just regular buttermilk pancakes.
We wanted lemon ricotta pancakes
'cause we fly like that.
So next we have our wet ingredients.
And I like to mix these separately,
so once you add it to your dry ingredients
you don't overwork your batter and they don't become tough.
You want a really light pancake.
So we're gonna start with our eggs.
We have three eggs.
Cut that off.
We're just gonna give us a quick whisk.
We have our butter.
We can add our butter to our buttermilk.
Again, if you have a larger bowl,
you can mix this all together,
but use what you have.
And then we'll add our ricotta to our buttermilk as well.
You will wow everybody if you decide to make this.
It is so good.
We have our ricotta, we have our eggs,
and then I'm going to add our lemon juice
straight into the batter
once I have everything mixed together.
So here we have our dry.
We're just gonna pour our buttermilk
and ricotta mixture into that.
Oh man, this just brings back so many memories.
I just absolutely loved cooking for him.
It was just like, it was always a vibe.
Like, I couldn't do no wrong in the kitchen, honestly.
And being a private chef,
you connect with your clients on a different level.
You become like, friends and family with them.
You're cooking, you know, their food.
You're nourishing their souls.
So, you just start relating to each other in a different,
you know, in a way that's really special.
And I think that that's what cooking for him did for me.
It made me a better chef
just because I had those moments to experiment
and try different things,
and having a really great person to be my tester.
Okay, so now that we have our batter made,
let's get cooking.
You wanna always make sure that the pancakes
is the last thing that you are making,
if you're making this for breakfast or a brunch
because they have to be hot.
That is key.
We're gonna cut our stove on to medium-high
and wait for that to get nice and hot.
Now, you don't want this too hot
because you don't want raw pancakes in the middle.
So you want a medium-high to medium-medium.
Second, the key to crispy nice pancakes
is olive oil and butter.
You want to add your butter
right when you're ready to drop your pancakes
because you don't want the butter to burn.
I'm gonna share another story.
This story is about the time that I made some food
so spicy, his nose was running.
Yes, so everybody knows that Nipsey loves spicy food.
That was one of the things that I really enjoyed
about cooking for him as well, because I had no limits.
I would just make this stuff up all the time.
Literally, he would tell me like,
"Just do you. Get creative.
Like, do your thing."
I'd be like, okay. I made habanero chicken stew.
Four different types of peppers.
I put like serrano, habanero, jalapeno, cayenne pepper.
I mean, any pepper I could think of,
I just put it in there.
And I balanced it with sweet potato.
And I was like, oh my gosh.
When he started eating it, his nose was running.
He got up and went to the bathroom
and like, his nose was running, his eyes was watering.
And I was like, "Oh my gosh. Did I make it too spicy?"
He was like, "No."
Like, he could barely talk and was just like, "Nah."
Like, "I like it," blowing his nose.
I was like, "Woo, okay.
Well as long as you're cool then I'm cool."
I will never forget that day.
Just seeing him like, really, like,
this is spicy, but enjoying it.
Ooh, they look bomb.
Today I used a one third of a cup measuring cup.
You can always use like a ice cream scoop
to get a uniform shape.
Another trick that I like to do when I make pancakes
at home is I always turn the pan.
So, if I started on this side, about halfway in,
I'll turn the pan this way.
For some reason it just makes for a more even pancake.
So, I'm gonna flip
the first one I did first.
Moment of truth.
Oh man. Ooh!
Yes. Nice and fluffy.
These look great. These look really good.
And that's why I mentioned moving your skillet around,
because you'll need to do that for them to cook evenly.
So, these are looking like a bag of money.
This is what it was about.
You know, like I cooked so many different things for him
and he always made me feel like I was like the best chef
in the world because it was like I never missed.
And I, you know, like, the truth is is I really am.
So now that the pancakes are done, they look incredible.
They're nice and golden brown.
Crispy edges, fluffy, flavorful. Just full of flavor.
Our last step is now building our plate
with our blueberry creme fraiche and some maple syrup.
We have our creme fraiche
that we're just going to slice a hole.
And put at the top.
(upbeat music)
And last but not least,
you cannot have pancakes without maple syrup.
(upbeat music)
These look so bomb. They're just fluffy.
Like, oh my God, I just don't miss.
He used to tell me that all the time.
He used to be like, it's just something in your hands.
Like, it's in your fingers.
You don't make anything nasty.
And it's a very true statement.
But I'm so excited about how these came out,
and I just can't wait to try it.
Okay, moment of truth.
Oh my God. This is it.
This is crazy. This tastes like cake.
Mm. You have to try this.
This is everything that a comfort breakfast meal is about.
I mean, it's so delicious
and it's just everything that I think of
when I think about Nipsey.
It was just so comforting and warm and just perfect Nip.
He was just a great soul, beautiful person,
and definitely miss him.
So it was just a pleasure making these pancakes
with you all.
If you want more of me
you can reach me at chefkay.com
and on Instagram @chefkaykay.
For this recipe and many more, go to delish.com
and I'm gonna go finish these pancakes.
Bye.
(upbeat music)