Crêpe Lorraine

I guess I should post something here but I can't think of anything that doesn't involve stuff I probably shouldn't be putting on this blog, SO that means it's MY turn to post a recipe!

Et voilà, my default any-time-of-the-day food, with a little extra je ne sais quoi so that the vagueness of my recipe isn't so bad. (While it can look cool to cook without having to use measuring cups etc, it makes it hard to tell other people what to do...)

~Crêpe Lorraine~

Pretty much this is any sort of filled crêpe.

Makes... maybe 5, from memory? Depends on the size of your pan, really.

Ingredients:
Crêpe mix:
- 1 egg
- 1 cup of (standard white) flour
- 3/4 cup milk?
- Butter (just a bit for the pan; can be replaced by margarine or oil I guess, but butter just tastes and SMELLS better)
[N: Apparently for a proper savoury crêpe, you should use some wholemeal flour. It's up to personal taste, I say, and as long as you're not cooking for an actual French person you're probably okay.]

Filling:
ANYTHING YOU WANT. I am particularly fond of:
- 1 egg
- grated cheese
- salt and (cracked) pepper

Other ideas may include, but are not limited to:
- Ham (and/or: cheese, egg, onion)
- Smoked salmon (and/or: lemon, cheese, cream cheese)
- BACON (I JUST THOUGHT OF THIS, SHOULD SO TRY IT even though maybe it isn't a thing, I don't know - and/or: cheese, egg)
- Chocolate! (Like, broken into pieces, or a fudgey sauce)
- Other standard dessert combinations: lemon and sugar, sliced banana and nutella, berries and a bit of cream...

Cooking:
I think that standard practice is to put all the dry ingredients first, and then add the wet ingredients (so I shall post it like that), but just FYI I tend to do the egg and milk first and whisk it lots to (attempt to) make it airy, then add the flour. This just saves a bowl.

1) Sieve the flour into a bowl. (Until recently we only had a tiny sieve so I used to just skip this and instead whisk the hell out of the mix later.)

2) In another bowl, crack the egg and add the milk, and beat the crap out of it.

3) Add the milk and egg to the flour, and whisk away!
(a) If you are Han, you will stop whisking when the mix is combined.
(b) If you are me, you will KEEP WHISKING WITH ENTHUSIASM just because you can. And also to doubly make sure that there aren't little flour bubbles left from not-sieving, because little flour-bubbles however small can totally ruin it.

4) The key to the crêpe (so I think anyway) is the TEXTURE. This is why I am not so sure on the measurements of flour and milk, because sometimes if you've added a bit too much flour you should add more milk.
The ideal texture is best tested with the ladel/big soup-serving-spoon you will use to pour the mixture on the pan later:
(a) With the spoon, scoop along the bottom of the bowl. The mix should feel somewhat thick, so you should feel a bit of pressure against the spoon. If it is like pushing through milk or a milkshake then you need more flour. I tend to not feel so much pressure when mixing near the surface of the mix, so if you stir higher up in the mix and feel a lot of pressure, that means you need more milk.
(b) After you have a spoon full of mix, lift it over the bowl and slowly pour it back in by tilting the spoon. The mix should fall smoothly. If dribbles then you need more flour, but if it takes ages to fall and splashes down loudly then you probably need more milk.

5) Put a large pan (but not wok; though potentially a curved crêpe could be interesting) on the stove, turning it to whatever heat you usually scramble an egg on.

6) Add a bit of butter (or pffff, fine oil if you must) and swivel the pan to spread it as it melts. I try to add butter before every second crêpe, but sometimes you just feel a bit more fatty...

7) Depending on the size of your ladel/spoon, pour 1 to 2 (or 1.5) scoops of batter straight onto the middle of the pan so that it naturally forms a circle, then smoothly swivel the pan in one big circle.
(a) Particularly for a crêpe lorraine, do your best to get the batter to take up the full space of the pan (so that there are no gaps between the crêpe and the edge of the pan).
(b) I tend not to swivel around more than 1.5 turns, because if I haven't reached the edge of the pan by then (e.g. if I'm making a small crêpe), it tends to go a bit mishappen and have little tentacle bits.

8) Wait until the surface of the crêpe has just solidified.

9) ADD THE FILLING. In my case:
(a) Crack an egg open onto the middle of the crêpe. (This is where crêpe size is important, because otherwise the egg may just slide along and off the crêpe.)
(b) Scramble, but do not spread it out across the whole crêpe. Keep it mostly in the middle, maybe taking up the middle half.
(c) Add salt, pepper, and sprinkle grated cheese evenly.
(d) Let it sit a little bit, for the egg to cook (so, if there's no egg you don't really need to wait).

10) FOLDING!
(a) Using a spatula, take the right edge and fold it to the about the middle.
(b) Similarly fold the left edge to meet the middle.
(c) Fold down the top and bottom edges too. I find that these usually don't go all the way to the middle, and don't think they need anyway. But maybe that's just because I like a lot of filling...
You should have a rectangle/square at this stage.

11) Leave to sit for a bit so that the edges stick/form part of the crêpe properly, then flip it over to heat up the other side a bit.
While I can flip (i.e. without a spatula; holding the handle of the plan and flicking up with your wrist) a normal crêpe (sometimes), I've never tried to flip one of these but hey you can give it a go if you want, bahahah.

12) Eat before it gets cold!


Hmmm this is kinda a boring recipe, and fairly simple considering how much I've written. I should probably think of something better but I eat weird things that usually don't require much effort. I guess I could always post the bread recipe... And simultaneously show how do to a four-plait? :p