Crèpes

Prior to pancake day a few years back, I discussed the relative merits of the English pancake and the French crèpe with my good friend Geraud. In the course of this we exchanged recipes. Here's his contribution on the art of the perfect crèpe. I'll post mine tomorow on the good day itself.

The crèpes you get with this one are thicker than those you can get in Britany for example, although it has to do with the fact that I just poor the liquid into the pan rather than flatten it with the special tool they have over there.

Now, how to prepare some good crèpes quickly :

in a pot, poor :
- one liter or milk (I use full fat milk, but half works as well),
- 6 eggs (yes, six),
- a tea spoon of salt,
- eventually a small pack of Vanilla sugar, if you plan to eat your crèpes sweet only,
- eventually a small pack of the chemical powder than makes the cakes grow (that's where my english is very limited...). That's not mandatory though
- 8 dL (that is, 400g) of white flour
- a small cup of sunflower oil (or any tasteless oil)
- if for sweet ones only, you can add a drop of orange flower essence, but that's strong, and not everybody like it, or a lemon or orange skin shredded, that's more subtle

Just mix the whole thing with a mixer (I told you, it's simple),
If you are patient enough, leave it alone half an hour, although it's not really needed,

use some wide flat pans (20-30 cm of diameter), and poor the content of a (replace by: the big deep spoon you use to serve soup) into a very hot pan. Use a bit of oil for the first one, and a tefal pan, if you don't have any, buy one, it's worth it just for that... some special pans exist for crèpe, extra flat (one centimeter of heigt, called crèpière ?)
I use two pans to make it decently quick. Turn them over once the first side is done, one side will be uniformly yellow, and the second side moon-like, that's normal ! The sun and the moon in your plate...
Turn them with a flat-wooden-spoon-you-see-what-I-mean, or make them twist !

One trick : if you eat them just once they are done, you'll still taste the raw taste a bit (which you may like), while if you pile them up, they'll finish cooking from the heat of each other.

Now you can serve that with all you can think about. I tend to put the garniture as a line in the middle, accross a diameter, fold in two over the line, and roll the whole thing like a cigar. Olga fold them in 4, so your choice !

Some of my favorite ones are :
-- salty ones:
- a spoon of thick cream (warm or cold, depends on what you like), some shredded gruyère, some minced mushrooms, and a bit of pepper
- simple red (salmon) caviar (yes, she's russian, they eat that like we eat nutella...), or lump eggs
- a spoon of cream, a slice of salmon, a bit of aneth (northern herbs)
- any variation on the above !
- any other thing you can think of ! you can go up to a burrito-like one...

-- sweety ones:
- sugar ! one small spoon, that's all, these are some of the best ones..
- any marmelade : orange, redberry, strawberry, apricot, plums, whatever
- Nutella, or melted chocolate
- butter and sugar (straight from Britany, you'll see it straight on the scale though !! they are solid folks over there ! ). the butter will melt
- mappled syrup or butter, if you can find some (like syrup, but more concentrated)
- honey !
- fruits (whatever you want)
- ice cream (again, whatever), with chantilly or hot cholocate on top of the roll
- a great one : a bit of sugar, a bit of lemon juice, roll it, cover with a soup spoon of rhum, and light it up, watch out !