"My freezer is stocked up with cooked crepes (an ingenious idea I nicked off a friend) that take minutes to warm up from frozen in the morning and spread with whatever’s in the cupboard" Yotam Ottolenghi
Having made these 5 star Cheesy curry crêpes on Saturday, I am now tempted to do the same, after all as Nigel Slater says: "You can get fancy with all manner of stuffings and sauces", sweet or savoury, stuffed or plain, baked, grilled, fried, rolled, folded or flat, big or small, even hot or cold ... The ways of dealing with a crêpe are endless.
But let me step back a little and just tell you about these particular crêpes, which David pronounced as 5 star. I think I might have gone for 4 and one of my guests who loved them did say that they thought they might be improved by the addition of some caramelised onion in the stuffing. At least 4 star though, maybe, from my point of view, even 4 1/ star. For David 5 - and when can we have them again? Well in a day or so's time actually as there are a couple leftover and I think they would just need reheating. And this time I might even remember to scatter some spring onions over the top.
I remember Nigel Slater saying somewhere that the first of the batch of crêpes is nearly always a disaster:
"The one that sticks a little, collapses in a heap when you attempt to turn it, and is thicker than you would have liked."
In my case it was too thin which is why, when I tried to turn it too soon it frayed at the edges, and was sticking to the pan. And yes it did collapse into a heap a bit. I had to unstick it from itself. Because I just could not turn it, and was panicking slightly about never being able to get it out of the pan, it stayed there longer, and eventually I was able to turn it and it was fine, if a bit ragged around the edges rather than lacy. Actually my worst one was the last, because I didn't have quite enough batter, and by the end the batter was marginally thicker, and so it didn't swirl around the pan very well and left me with extraneous long offshoots and a distinctly non-circular shape. And it was a bit small. Nevertheless it too was fine. And there was one that was ever so slightly burnt in the middle because I left it there too long.
However, as one cook who made this recipe said, the worst part of making them was indeed making the crepes. The rest is really easy. You make a kind of béchamel which is flavoured with a small bit of curry powder and turmeric - which is later spread over each pancake. Then you load one quarter of the pancake with shredded cooked chicken (in my case from a supermarket roast chicken), some cheese and spring onions, fold into a quarter, place on a baking tray, top with more cheese, drizzle with oil and bake. Serve with chutney - he says mango but we used some of my home-made varieties - peach and plum - and those spring onions on top - which I forgot. I also forgot to take a photo - these are from an X contributor - Calliss Clan.
Ottolenghi also suggested ham as a suitable filling, although I think the chicken goes better with the curry flavour.
Anyway I knew that there are endless versions of stuffed savoury crêpes out there, but thought, as my normal 'and also' thing, that I would just look to see what the Ottolenghi crew had come up with. There are four options as far as I can see.
The first are these Feta and mozzarella chachapas with honey and lime which apparently are a Venezuelan street food, and so the pancakes are actually corn pancakes - blitzed kernels mixed with milk, eggs, semolina or matzo flour, sugar and salt - although the opinion of the two non-professionals who had made this was that the sugar was not necessary because of the honey and lime finishing drizzle - which was actually what really made the dish. The filling is the cheeses plus jalapeños, spring onions and coriander seeds. Finished by baking in the oven.
Then, there are the Grilled pancakes with harissa, cabbage and taleggio. Folded in half like the Venezuelans chachapas, these have a filling of cabbage, spinach and mushrooms as well as a few other things. More substantial but pretty easy, and created to publicise their rose harissa - now available in Woolworths by the way for $13.00 a jar. Well if you're looking to treat yourself or give as a present ... Taleggio, by the way, is a semi-soft rinded cheese I think. People suggest using brie or camembert instead if you can't find taleggio. If you look at the very brief TikTok video that the OTK has put out for this recipe you can see the kind of cheese you are dealing with. But then again why not just use your own favourite cheese?
In some ways the most talked about ones are the Cheesy baked crepes with orange rayu which come from the Extra Good Things OTK book - the rayu being the extra good thing in this instance. Rayu is a Japanes chilli oil, and you make your own according to the recipe. However, even though I have given you a link to the recipe you may not be able to access it unless you have the book, because the only online version I could find was the one in the Ottolenghi books section. If you have the book you can register and access the recipes online - although why would you want to if you've got the book? But I ramble. Various reviews of the recipe raved about it. The pancakes are flavoured with turmeric and filled with cream cheese, Gruyère and spring onions, then baked in the oven with cheese on top and served with the rayu. One lady who had made these - had a nice picture, but also these words:
"This is the first of three recipes I made with Ottolenghi’s orange rayu. These are some very rich and cheesy crepes, which I really enjoyed on their own, but I have to say I’m not sure the soy sauce based rayu worked in this setting. Maybe I am just a little too apprehensive of fusion." Chez Mary B.
As I said - others raved. The first of the pictures below is the only sort of 'official' picture - I think on Instagram - the others are from Chez Mary B and We Cook Books.
And finally we have these Cheese, chorizo and spring onion pancakes, which are a bot of a cheat in that they are not crêpes but somewhat thicker pancakes - without being the American-style thick ones. They are also not stuffed in the sense that the filling is enclosed. I suppose they are more like a pizza really, but somehow or other they seemed to fit.
My Friday crêpes were delicious. The afternoon was enjoyable - beautiful day and so we dined outside, the company was gloriously entertaining, and though, I say it myself, the food was pretty good. Nothing amazing for the rest of the meal - various standard kind of nibbles - of which the Meredith cheese drizzled with olive oil and thyme was the standout I think, and baked plums in red wine for dessert.
Try them some time. Next time I do something with crêpes - I mean the possibilities are endless really - I shall make a big batch and freeze them as suggested. Baking or greaseproof paper between each crêpe, so that they don't stick together. Ottolenghi said they ate them a lot at home, and that he makes 35 in one go. Which might just be a bit extreme. But then he is a chef.
And did I mention that these particular crêpes were large in diameter - made in a 30cm frying pan? But, of course, you can make smaller ones too if you are not stuffing them with a lot of things, although if you only fold them in half it would be OK with a filling. Or you can just sprinkle with sugar and drizzle with lemon juice, which might just be the perfect way to eat a pancake. So filled with memory too.
"There is hardship in everything except eating pancakes." Charles Spurgeon
YEARS GONE BY
March 2
2024 - Swifties
2023 - My ten go to dinners
2021 - Image conscious Woolworths
2020 - March to July 2020 is missing because I embarked on a process of transferring my older posts to a printable version on my computer. Of course I gave up after five months. Those missing months were deleted from the net though.
2019 - Nothing
2018 - Mango lassi in Northcote
2017 - Nothing
Al that I can do is say.... Repeat, and Repeat again!