What’s for Dinner 15 November 2008: All about Crêpes

Crossposted at Dailykos.com

Crêpes have a mystique about them, sounding all French and sexy and stuff. Since it is French cooking, it must be complex and difficult, and only for those snooty people that go to expensive French restaurants, not for us mere mortals. Nothing could be further from the truth!

Crêpes are easy to make, and are an outstanding shell for almost anything, hot or cold, sweet or savory. A lot of folks think that they are sort of a pancake, but they are very different. The only resemblance to me is that they are flat and have flour in them.

To me, they are more like a custard. They are rich in eggs, and have a flavor that blends with almost anything. I will give the best recipe that I have found for the crêpes themselves, than a couple of my favorite fillings and toppings.

The basic recipe is simple, but that is sort of deceptive. The technique is the more important part. Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (unbleached is OK, but do not use whole wheat or bread flour)

1/2 teaspoon salt (the finer, the better. If you have a mortar and pestle, grind it)

1/2 cup whole milk (if you use reduced fat milk, the quality will suffer)

2 tablespoons of a bland oil (do not use olive oil because it has too much flavor)

2 large eggs

2 yolks from large eggs

Into a bowl, sift the flour and salt together. Add the milk to make a very stiff dough, and mix it even after you thing that it is blended. Do not use a mixer or food processor. You do not want air incorporated. Just use a sturdy spoon and a bowl.

Gradually add the oil whilst stirring. Make sure that it is incorporated well.

Next add the eggs, one at a time, making sure the mixture is homogeneous after each egg. Stir, stir, stir. I break my eggs into a shallow pan and pluck out the little white spot, but that is probably because I get obsessive.

Next, add the egg yolk, one at a time, stirring, stirring, stirring after each one until everything is well blended.

Now stop. Cover the bowl tightly and let it rest at least four hours (you should probably refrigerate it after two), or better, overnight (definitely refrigerate immediately). This is critical. If you do not allow the batter to rest, you will get lots of lumps. The moisture in the batter hydrates the lumpy bits and makes them easier to stir out after resting.

After resting, stir, stir, stir again and mash any lumps that you find into oblivion. Then, very gradually, add around two cups of whole milk (I like to use 1/4 cup installments) until the whole mass has the feel of heavy whipping cream. You want it thin enough to flow, but not so thin that it will not make a cohesive product. As a good rule of thumb, if a spoon in the center falls over right away, that was too much milk. If it stands up for over a couple of seconds, not enough milk. But, if it slowly leans over and gently falls, just right. You want to be able to distribute the batter in the hot pan fast enough to cover it, but not have a watery mix.

Now to cook them. Lots is said about crêpe pans, and they are fine, but I just a small nonstick skillet. The bottom of mine is about six inches in diameter.

But the secret is to make an assembly line. They way my kitchen is set up I have to work from right to left, but it does not matter. On the right is the skillet, in the middle two overturned small plates (for cooling the crêpes, and on the left a cookie sheet with waxed paper for accumulation.

By the way, this is one of those recipes that can be doubled, or even tripled. Crêpes freeze well, so you can make a bunch of them for later use. It is because of the lecithin in the eggs, I think. Just make sure that they are very cool and bag them in quart freezer bags until you are ready for them. Allow them to thaw at room temperature. Using the microwave oven makes them tough.

Take a paper towel or pastry brush and lightly coat the pan with bland oil, just a thin film. This helps with heat transfer. When your pan is hot enough, take batter and add to the pan. It takes exactly two tablespoons for my pan, but yours may be a little bigger or smaller then mine. Rapidly swirl the batter around to coat the pan. If you get gaps in the crêpes because of failure to coat the pan evenly, it is either too hot or you need a little more batter. You want the combination of heat and quantity of batter just right to make a thin, even piece. (You can patch little ones with a drop or two of batter if you work fast).

Cook until the batter loses its gloss and bubbles form. Than take a thin utensil (I use a cake icing spatula) and deftly flip the crêpe over. Cook until no stickiness is left, then flip onto the first plate.

Then cook another one, this time moving the done, cooling crêpe to the second plate. With the third one, move the one from the second plate to the cookie sheet. Continue until all of your batter is gone. Stir the batter after every two of three crêpe, and reoil the pan every now and then.

You are apt to spoil the first few that you attempt until you get the temperature in the pan right. Just keep practicing until they come out right. A nice one has a golden color and is not crisp. By the way, there is only one “pretty” side, the first side to be cooked. The second side has dark circles where the bubbles form (one reason for mixing by hand is to minimize those), so always put in in the inside when you roll them.

I always refrigerate mine after they cool to room temperature unless I am going to fill them immediately. Because of all of the egg, they do not deteriorate like regular bread does in the refrigerator.

Now, what do we want for filling? Fruit is good. One that I especially like is apricot filling. Take apricots (fresh ones are best, but dried ones can be used after soaking overnight) and cook them up. You can run them through a colander to remove the skins if you want, but I never bother. Sweeten to taste and thicken with a little cornstarch or arrowroot. Allow to cool, covered, in the refrigerator. While the filling cools, whip a half pint of whipping cream and then mix in an eight ounce block of cream or Neufchâtel cheese in it. Add a little vanilla and sweeten to taste.

Now, take your crêpes and (remembering to put the ugly side up) and add a couple of tablespoons of filling (make a line of filling like you would in making enchiladas). Roll into a cylinder and put on a platter with the seam down so the weight of the crêpe keeps it from unrolling. Take the whipped cream/cheese mixture and top it. I use a pastry tip and bag to be decorative. These will keep well enough so that you can assemble them the night before if you are taking them somewhere, like a potluck. Once you try this, you will want to make them often. Any fruit makes a good filling, so be creative.

You can also fill them with cold chicken salad or similar fillings. The crêpes will keep for about a week in the refrigerator, so it does not hurt to make a few more than you need for a particular project. As I said earlier, they freeze well, too.

How about something hot and hearty? Try this. It is a chicken dish with a Mornay Sauce. Take a fryer/broiler around four pounds or so and cook it with seasonings that you normally use for stock. I like to put in a small onion, a stalk of celery, a couple of bay leaves, a carrot (all coarsely chopped except for the bay) along with salt and pepper. Simmer for an hour or two, until the chicken is tender. Pour off the stock and use it for something else, like a soup. After the chicken is cool enough to handle, skin and bone it. You can discard the vegetables, or you can return everything except to the meat, add more water, and simmer for a couple of hours for a stronger stock.

Chop up the chicken pretty finely, using both the white and dark meat. A food processor is fine for this, but just don’t turn it to chicken paste. You want to leave some texture.

Whilst you wait for the chicken to cool, make the sauce. In a large skillet, take

1 Tablespoon butter

4 Tablespoons flour (all-purpose, bleached or unbleached, not whole wheat)

3 cups milk (I have never had any trouble making white sauces with skim milk)

Salt and pepper to taste

Make a roux with the butter, flour, and salt and proceed like in any other white sauce. (Do not go overboard with the salt, as you will add cheese later and it is salty. However, my roux seems to turn out better if there is a little salt in the mix). Use a moderate temperature, and do not brown the flour, just cook it. By the way, I have never seen a successful sauce or gravy made by adding uncooked flour to the liquid. They always turn out to have a raw flavor to them which I find very distasteful. Any way, after two or three minutes, take the skillet off of the heat and add the milk, stirring furiously. I use a regular fork, but many prefer a whisk. If you do this properly, you should not get lumps. The trick is to add the milk all at once whilst stirring the heck out of it.

Place the skillet back on the range and cook until the sauce thickens nicely, stirring all the while to prevent lumps. After it has thickened, take one cup of it and check the salt and pepper balance, adding more if needed. Now, here is the secret to this dish: nutmeg. Add somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg (freshly scraped from the nut is by far the best, but ground will do) and blend. Add this to your bowl of minced chicken and mix well.

Back at the skillet, add 3/4 cup of freshly shredded Parmesan cheese and stir until the cheese has melted and blended. Take off the heat and cover to prevent a skin forming. I like to take a piece of plastic wrap or waxed paper and put it directly on the surface, but it is kind of messy later, but no skin forms.

Now preheat your oven to 450 F. Whilst it is heating, take your crêpes and put about two tablespoons of chicken/sauce blend evenly across the ugly side and roll like I described above, putting the rolled crêpe on a glass baking dish seam side down. Leave a little space between them so you can remove them intact after cooking. When your baking dish is full, take the Mornay Sauce and add a generous amount over each one. Not to worry if it runs off, some of it will.

Put the baking dish in the oven, uncovered, and bake for a while, maybe 10 minutes, but ovens vary. You want the tops of the crêpes to brown slightly and the sauce to be bubbling, but do not make crispy critters out of them.

Serve and enjoy. You can even have fruit crêpes for dessert.

Everyone has heard of crêpes Suzette, and I should describe them. Basically, it an an unrolled crêpe that has been flambéed. Generally, the crêpe is put on a fire safe dish, some orange peel (NOT navel orange peel, Valencia) is ground over it. Some sugar is added, and orange liqueur is added and alit at the table. It is pretty good theatre, but I like the cold, fruit filled ones better.

So there you have it. Crêpes are easy to make once you get the hang of it and go with just about anything. In many ways they are the French equivalent of a flour tortilla, and can be used in many ways in a similar fashion. Although I have never experimented with it, I suspect the some excellent hybrid Mexican-French dishes could be developed by making that substitution.

As always, any questions, comments, tips, and recipes are welcome. I look forward to reading he comments.

Warmest regards,

Doc

Tags: Crepes, Dessert, French cookery, Learning, Main Course, Teaching, What/s for Dinner