Recipe: Crepes
From: Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion
The theme for this week's Cookbook Challenge is breakfast - fortunately a much easier theme than last week's! The only problem with the theme this week were all the options - I had visions of omelettes, baked eggs, pancakes, French toast and bacon circulating in my head.
But then I got up this morning and went to the kitchen and suddenly - Crepes! I want to make crepes! As you do.
The best thing about crepes is how quick they are to put together and how quickly they cook. The bad thing about crepes is that I'm not very good at making them. Mine always end up rather thicker than the thin, lacy ones I imagine should come out of the frying pan. The recipe for crepes in The Cook's Companion says "you will get better - and so will the pancakes!" but I don't think this applies to me. I keep trying though.
Whenever I make pancakes or crepes for breakfast, I always like to serve it with fruit - it makes me feel better about eating something that's not terribly healthy! So today I stewed a couple of pears in a raspberry sauce to go with the crepes. We keep receiving masses of pears in our fortnightly fruit and vegetable delivery but I'm not a huge fan of pears. I really only like fresh pears when they are still crunchy, but the bloody things ripen so quickly. Fortunately, I don't mind cooked pears so poaching them is one way I deal with them.
The stewed pears and raspberry sauce is super easy - I cut a couple of peeled pears in half (removing the core), and put them in a small pot with a literal splash of water and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Into the pot went a handful of frozen raspberries, and then I put the lid on and let it cook until the pears were soft. After that, I removed the pears and simmered the leftover liquid without a lid to reduce and thicken it. When the sauce was nice and thick, I stirred in a small knob of butter, and it was ready.
If you don't like crepes (wtf) there are other pancake/waffle/crepe posts here.
See previous Cookbook Challenge posts here.
Update: see the round up at My Food Trail.
Crepes
From Stephanie Alexander's The Cook's Companion
Makes about 8-10 crepes
30g butter
pinch of salt
1 & 1/2 cups of milk
150g plain flour
2 eggs
Warm the butter, salt and milk until the butter has melted.
In a separate bowl, sift in the flour, and then make a well in the middle. Break the eggs into the well and work in some flour.
Add the warm milk and whisk until smooth. Refrigerate for 2 hours before cooking. Add more milk if the batter seems too thick.
Heat a frying pan over medium-low heat. Wipe the pan with a piece of buttered paper for the first pancake. Lift the pan from the heat, add in a ladle of batter and swirl the pan so the batter spreads to the edges.
Put the pan back on the heat and cook for a minute. Lift the thin outer edge of the crepe with a spatula and flip to cook the other side for another minute. Repeat with the rest of the batter.
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