Friday, 3/12/10 – Crepes

Every culture has its pancake. IHOP aficionados will tell you that pancakes come in many shapes and sizes with myriad toppings and fillings. I’ve proudly witnessed the consuming of a stack of 10” pancakes at The Lick Skillet, kountry kooking powerhouse of Monrovia, Indiana, but I’ve never personally been a huge breakfast advocate, opting for a small bowl of oatmeal or cereal and a piece of fruit. I can definitely understand the appeal of justifying the need to fry sugar, flour and eggs and douse them with maple syrup at 8 o’clock in the morning, though. And we wonder why Americans are overweight.

True to their style, the French have a more sophisticated and less gluttonous pancake – the crepe. Like its counterpart, crepes can be filled and doused with endless ingredients. They have an advantage over pancakes, though, being that they can be savory dishes too. In making the watery and loose crepe batter, you simply leave out the large amounts of sugar and throw in some buckwheat if you're planning on making this dinner. (Fun fact: Buckwheat is actually gluten free…which makes it a perfect substitute for my celiac friends and family!)

That’s exactly what we did to make the savory crepes stuffed with ham, mushroom and gruyere cheese, browned in the oven and broiler. It can be a breakfast meal, but I could even see it being served as an appet---------

Sorry, I just got sucked into a Snuggie infomercial. That thing is revolutionary.

--izer or main course. Making crepes takes patience and a light hand. You get your nonstick pan nice and warm and oiled (the French use clarified butter), pour in a small amount of the batter and swirl it around until it coats the bottom. It only needs a few seconds, and then you flip and do the other side. If you have the right amount of batter in your pan, not too little and not too much, you will be able to get a nice flip without breaking out the utensils or dropping it onto the flame a la Julie Child. It’s a crap shoot though, meaning that no amount of experience will ensure that it flips perfectly.

We also made a sweet crepe batter and cooked perhaps the most delicious thing I have eaten since starting at FCI: Crepes Suzette. The dessert was so good, in fact, that I made it for Steve on Saturday night, and had to get my fix on Sunday as well. It starts with a compound butter consisting of sugar, orange juice, orange liquor and orange zest. The butter is melted in a large pan, and each crepe is added one-by-one, swirled on both sides in the butter and folded into fourths. When you have four of the crepe folds in the pan, add a small amount of brandy and flambé the mix. This will burn off the raw alcohol taste of the brandy yet still maintain the base flavor. At home, my flambé wasn’t the best. Scratch that, it didn’t light at all. I enlisted Steve’s help, and we kept adding more and more brandy. I was sure that it would ignite at any moment, and would create a firestorm in our small kitchen. Alas, it was anti-climactic, and even touching a match to the sauce produced nothing more than a puttering spark. We finished it off with a few delicate orange supremes and candied orange zest. The dish is that perfect mix of butter, warm liquor and orange sweetness, just perfection. Again, I’ve had it three times in the last three days.

Our last and final dish was apple slices marinated in sugar, liquor and cinnamon, dipped in beignet batter and deep fried, sprinkled with powdered sugar and served on a berry puree with a side of crème anglaise. Due to the apple’s high water content, the batter doesn’t stay crispy, but the apples inside are warm and mushy, and the tartness of the berries and sweetness of the crème make it divine.

I think I must put this knowledge to good use and have a dessert party featuring all these amazing delicacies! I cannot continue to bring home these goodies and/or replicate them at home…we’re starting to plan our evenings, those few we get to spend together, around dessert. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, we just want to share the wealth!