August 20, 2005

Return to the Kitchen: Crepes!

It always feels a little strange, stepping back into my kitchen after being away from it. True, I was only gone ten days, but that's a pretty long time to go without cooking anything, as far as I'm concerned. I'm always slightly concerned that I'll have forgotten how to do something important, or that I'll fail to remember simple things like monitoring pan-temperatures, or whether something has been left in the broiler. Such things have never come to pass - yet! - but I am always still a little concerned.

Today also brought a return to a dish I've not made in a long time: Crepes. I've always been partial to them, but when I travelled to France on my Big Trip ten years ago, I fell in love with them. Sweet, savory, stacked, folded, on a plate, or in a folded paper cone, crepes were my number one hunger-buster on the streets of Paris, and they're awfully good at home, too.


Since I have been primarily cooking lighter meals since we got back from Scotland, I decided to make a breakfast of savory crepes. With their payload of a single egg and but a half-teaspoon of canola oil, they fit well enough in with my criteria that I decided to include slices of Freybe's Italian sausage - part of their line of lower-fat chicken and turkey sausages that I use in a number of supper dishes (like Sausage and Hominy Chili) quite frequently.


Like a number of food bloggers, I've recently been pillaging the Williams Sonoma website for its recipes, and the one that I decided on for my crepes was their Black Pepper Crepes with Goat Cheese and Tomatoes. Since I was using a 9 or 10" non-stick frying pan instead of a WS crepe pan, I only got five crepes instead of eight, but I also was using between a third and a half cup of batter for each one, too - so that sort of makes sense. I also decided that the black pepper element of the crepe batter was negligible, so next time I may well add more pepper - or perhaps grind additional pepper over the crepe as it cooks on its first side, so the fresh black pepper sinks evenly into the batter and is locked in when the crepe is turned.


I also discovered that I did not need to re-season the pan between crepes, as the recipe suggests. Perhaps that is an advantage of the non-stick pan over the crepe pan, but it worked in my favour, so I'm not complaining.

I had forgotten how much fun crepes are. You can prepare them in advance. You can fill them with practically anything. You can dress them up or down. You can freeze them. And, you can microwave chilled crepes to heat them back up!

7 comments:

Joe said...

I havent had crepes in so long - these look great!

Toni said...

Yum! I love crepes...

Dawna said...

Thanks for stopping by, Joe & Yellowandorange. It's been so long since I made crepes, that I had forgotten how easy they are. Now I'm on something of a mission, I think. Guess what's for breakfast next weekend?

I like dinner crepes, too. I had a wonderful crepe torta once, that was layers of crepes alternately spread with wild mushroom duxelles and a creamy cheese (it may have been Camembert, I'm not sure).

And, of course, Crepes Suzette are absolutely delicious, and I haven't made those in at least eight or nine years...

Unknown said...

I want a crepe pan... I have only made them in school, but I really enjoyed it and tehre are so many things you can do with them.

Dawna said...

Hi Linda. A crepe pan, eh? Well, I'm pretty happy with my ten inch slick non-stick. I've used crepe pans, and they're fine, but a good multi-tasker works just as well (excuse me while I channel Alton for just a moment...).

Just don't try one of those dastardly electric devices where you're supposed to invert a domed cooking surface into the batter... non, et non, et non! Resultant crepes are thick and clunky and the hardware is hard to hold on to. It's considerably more laborious than it needs to be.

Unknown said...

hmm, non stick works eh? After having been forced to season up the iron pans at school, I would happily use a non-stick. Unfortunately, I don't have one of those either ~ maybe a trip to Kitchen Corner is necessary? (I AM on a budget)

Dawna said...

My 10" (approx) non-stick definitely isn't a fancy schmancy one! It's just heavy enough to do the trick, but not heavy enough to be a pain in the wrist as you rotate the pan for a nice, even coating. Just make sure you get a pan that flares nicely, so you can slide your spatula under it easily.