PicoBlog

Welcome to Grand Prix Gastronomy! In 2024, this series is dedicated to cooking the favorite dishes of every driver on the grid.

When I kicked off this project and sent emails to all the various Formula 1 teams that exist in 2024, I had a pretty good feeling I wouldn't be hearing much from Mercedes or Lewis Hamilton. The British driver is, without question, the biggest star in the sport, which means his PR folks aren't going to bug him with very minor questions like his favorite foods.

But the plus side here is that Sir Lewis is a big enough star that I knew I'd be able to find some information about the foods he loves somewhere.

Peep around the internet, and you'll come across plenty of Hamilton's faves. His Formula 1 driver profile cites Indian food as his favorite cuisine, something that was reaffirmed in the Times of India. But I was far more invested in a Business Insider profile about the things that Lewis eats on a daily basis. In it, he listed a ton of different foods he eats — but I absolutely refuse to cook anything like porridge, because I'm not a race car driver.

But there was one part that stood out to me: “I love vegan pancakes.” Allegedly, Sir Lewis loves to wake up to a big ol’ stack of pancakes when he's on holiday. Because my goal for Grand Prix Gastronomy this season is to whip up dishes that are close to each drivers’ heart, those vegan pancakes seemed like the perfect option.

He's also a big fan of the dish that has allegedly prevented millennials everywhere from buying homes: avocado toast. Before he went vegan, Sir Lewis enjoyed his avocado toast topped with an egg, but after his veganization, he's omitted the egg.

Pancakes and avocado toast? Mr. Hamilton, you are speaking my language.

This week, my two primary recipes come from What's Gaby Cooking (classic avocado toast + five variations) and Love & Lemons (vegan pancakes).

If you know me, though, then you know that I am absolutely not going to rest with the simplest variations possible. So, I have a few other recipes I'm using this week.

This Dutch Oven No Knead Bread from Bowl of Delicious is easily one of my favorite recipes of all time. If you're hesitant about making bread at home, this recipe is a super simple way to start. It doesn't require any ultra-specialty tools, and you don't have to spend hours kneading it. Just mix your ingredients, let ‘em rise, and bake ‘em in a Dutch oven. Alternatively, you could pick up a loaf of your favorite crusty bread at the grocery store or bakery! I personally love baking, but I know it's not for everyone — so do whatever makes you happy and works for your schedule!

I also decided to make some quick pickled red onions based on a recipe from Gimme Some Oven. I love love love pickled onions on my avocado toast, and they're pretty simple to make at home. Again, these are totally optional — but definitely delicious!

If you aren't making your own pickled onions or bread, then Lewis Hamilton's vegan breakfast can be assembled super quickly. If you are making your own pickled onions and bread, then I would definitely recommend getting started at least six hours before you want to eat. The onions will taste much better if you give them a few hours to mingle, and you'll get a much better bread result if you wait until the loaf has cooled entirely before you cut it. I was in a pretty warm house, so my bread only needed about 90 minutes to fully rise, with another 40-ish in the oven. If it's cooler, it'll take longer for the rise to happen, but the dough should still have doubled in size after three hours.

If you want to serve everything together, then I recommend starting with your pancakes! With normal pancakes, you don't want to let your batter sit too long before cooking, but vegan pancakes need to sit for about five to 10 minutes to give the baking soda and vinegar time to work their magic. Once you've stirred everything together, get your pan heating up, then slice up your bread and prep the avocado topping however you see fit (I generally mush up the avocado with lime, salt, pepper, and chili flakes).

Then cook your pancakes one at a time (unless you are extremely, fully confident that your pan can withstand more than one pancake at a time). Do you know how I know this? I tried to start with four pancakes all at once. It went horribly. Terribly. If I was only cooking for myself, I probably would have just eaten my mangled cake bits and been plenty fine, but I literally could not display photos of those things with any element of pride or any hope of maintaining my credibility as a Food Person. Reader, I quickly remade my pancake batter (with a little added sugar the second time around) and cooked them one at a time. It was a far greater success.

When you're about halfway through cooking your pancakes, pop your bread slices into a toaster or into the oven. I toasted mine long enough to crisp up the exterior, but not enough to burn the damn thing or turn it into a hard little puck. After they're done, I like to rub a raw garlic clove onto the toast (it gives a nice flavor without being too pungent), then assemble the toasts as I see fit. For me, that involved my avocado mush, my pickled onions, some arugula, pumpkin seeds, and flaky salt. Pop your pancakes onto the plate, cover ‘em in syrup, and voila: You have a Lewis Hamilton-approved vegan breakfast.

Lewis Hamilton's two favorite breakfast recipes are nothing new to my breakfast-loving palate, so there were no surprises here: I truly enjoyed both my avocado toast and my pancakes.

In fact, my husband did as well! Saying that he's not an adventurous eater would be a disservice, because I've seen him try plenty of weird stuff. I'd more say that he's a skeptical eater: He'll hear your argument as to why he should try a certain food, but he'll make no guarantees he'll enjoy it. There are some dishes I love that he'll never understand no matter how many times he steals a bite, and there are some that have ended up becoming staples on our dinner rotation. (I think the easiest example of this is chicken marsala. Until recently, he'd never had it. When I explained the concept to him, he was not interested. Then I made it, and he couldn't get enough of it.)

As such, he arrived to Lewis' chosen meal with plenty of skepticism. He likes pancakes, but he was unsure if he'd enjoy the vegan version, because he enjoys the particular texture of the standard fare. He did not understand the whole “avocado toast” thing in the slightest and has just never had an inclination to try it. At the end of the meal, though, I think he actually enjoyed most of the meal more than me!

I think my biggest issue was the pancakes, though I am not at all discounting the possibility that they had annoyed me a fair amount after my first try at cooking them went totally awry, to the extent that my lingering annoyance impacted my enjoyment.

Most vegan foods have a different texture than their non-vegan counterparts, and I knew that would absolutely be the case thanks to the addition of whole wheat flour; it would inherently be a little grittier than normal. But I think my issue came from the fact that I tried the batter of the initial batch. If you lick that pancake batter, you are going to taste the vinegar, and I was super put off by that sour bite. I couldn't taste anything else after I tasted the first (failed) batch.

For my second batch, I added in some sugar as well as the maple syrup, and I only cooked one pancake at a time. I found the flavor a little more palatable to me; there was still a little bit of a bite to the batter, but it was more of a buttermilk-y bite than pure vinegar. I also found that I definitely needed to top my pancakes in maple syrup; usually I avoid doing so because I think the pancakes get too soggy and too sweet, but the vegan pancakes really benefitted from the syrup, both in terms of its flavor and its texture.

And honestly, what can I say about avocado toast that has not already been said before? I love that shit, and I found it especially good with my Dutch oven bread; just due to the nature of the prepping, proofing, and cooking process, no-knead loaves often have a much denser crumb than your standard loaf, but I really like that for my avocado toast. I want a base layer that can withstand the horrifying amount of toppings that I'm about to slap on that bad boy. We can't have that shit getting soggy — the avocado is mushy enough. I don't have time to worry about whether or not my toast situation is about to fall apart.

I had extra avocado and bread, so I made more toast for lunch the following day — but I added a pre-vegan Lewis Hamilton spin to the affair by topping the slices with a fried egg. My husband became an even bigger fan.

I'm still a little miffed about my whole pancake debacle, so I would like to kindly request that y’all share your favorite vegan pancake recipes in the comments. I would like to attempt the pancakes again but with a more conventional result (i.e. no wheat flour), but I'm not totally sure how to play around with ratios and rising agents and all that nonsense in a vegan-friendly way.

I'm also totally here for your favorite vegan recipes in general. I tried the vegan thing for a while in college, but I came at it with a really unhealthy, disordered-eating mindset, so I don't think I ever totally appreciated the lifestyle choice for what it was. I don't really see a time in my future where I won't eat at least some meat, but I do want to try being more intentional and mindful about the impact of my choices.

If you’re interested in seeing the progression of Grand Prix Gastronomy, you’ll be able to do so in a few places. Instagram will feature most of the visual content, while Substack will be a little wordier. If you need a handy mid-week roundup, you’ll be able to find those on Twitter. 

Here are all the relevant links in one place, if you want to subscribe:

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