Crêpes Fruit de Mer/Seafood Pancakes

The crêpe is the king of tortillas. I manage to eat them right out of the pan with a little butter and salt, or even without the butter and salt.

In Collioure, where we have spent three glorious summers on two beaches with the ancient Chateau presiding over the town and the smell of the sea wafting in through our windows, a jolly Frenchman and his wife from Marseille set up their Grand Marnier crêpe stand on the boardwalk.

 

Each night after dinner when we took our walk along the sea, we stopped for a crêpe with brown sugar, dark chocolate or plain sugar and Grand Marnier. “Arroser bien!” cried Monsieur Grenier, thrusting an oversized bottle of Grand Marnier at us while his wife, pouring sweat, turned another crêpe in its bubbling butter on huge round iron hotplates.

I know that we are the reason (four of us ate one crêpe per night for a month at not a few francs per head) Monsieur and Madame will retire one day in an ocean view condo across the bay from our apartment, and we shall have to make our own.

And so we can.

The Origins

Crêpes are also made in France on Candlemas, known in America also as Groundhog day! Originally a pagan holiday of worshipping the god, Pan, it lost its pagan theme to become a religious celebration 40 days after Christmas and celebrated by lighting candles, hence the name.
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The Classic

  • 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons flour
  • 2 tablespoons sugar
  • Pinch of salt
  • 3 eggs, beaten well
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 2 tablespoons melted butter plus butter for the skillet
  • Dash of Cognac

Sift the flour, sugar and salt. Beat the eggs and milk and stir into the flour until smooth. Add the melted butter and Cognac and let sit for an hour at room temperature.
In a well-seasoned 10″ skillet, melt a teaspoon of butter and using a soup ladle, pour about half a cup of crêpe batter into thehot pan and rotate the skillet to cover the bottom with a thin layer of batter.
Let cook for 30 seconds or so, watching the edges of the pancake. When the edges look curly and browned, turn the crêpewith a spatula and cook on the other side for 30 seconds. Both sides should be a lovely golden brown.
Stack the crêpes on a heated plate until use, or serve each one as it is ready, spreading with caramel, melted bitter chocolate ganache, brown sugar, or simply lemon and a sprinkling of white or brown sugar. Fold each in half, each in half, then in half again to form a quarter circle, or roll up amd serve.

CARAMEL:

Melt 1cup sugar over a medium to low fire. When the sugar is golden brown, add 1/2 cup heavy cream slowly down the side of the pan, stirring constantly to make the caramel. You may need a bit more cream, depending on the consistency you want. The cream must be added slowly as it cools the sugar and hardens it quickly, so you must give it time to warm and blend with the sugar to make a sauce. This is also delicious over ice cream.

 

Crêpes fruits de mer (seafood stuffed crêpes)

CREPES FRUIT DE MER SAUCE NANTUA

 

This is a creamy, saffron-laced delight and perfect for a snazzy dinner party or just to enjoy a deux. It is fine to substitute any shellfish or fish filling you prefer. I have even used smoked salmon and these were delicious, if incredibly rich. Go for it, you deserve it! Come to think of it, make this even if you’re single! Pour a nice glass of Sancerre and don’t be shellfish with the pour…

For the crêpes:

  • 1 1/2 cups whole milk
  • 1 cup flour
  • 2 eggs
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 tablespoon Cognac or Armagnac
  • 2 tablespoons melted butter
  • More butter for the crepe pan
Shrimp and scallops for seafood crêpes

For the filling:

  • 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil2 tablespoons butter
  • 1 small sweet onion, chopped fine
  • 300g of scallops, chopped coarse
  • 300g small shrimp, peeled and chopped coarse
  • Dash of white wine
  • 1/2 cup heavy cream
  • Juice of half a lemon
  • Pinch of saffron threads or powdered saffron
  • Pinch of anise seed
  • Salt and pepper

Make the crêpes:

Mix the milk, flour, eggs, salt, Cognac and melted butter until very smooth. Let rest at least half an hour.
Heat a small bit of butter in a hot crepe or non-stick pan and when it bubbles, pour in about 1/4 cup of batter, tilting the pan to spread the batter into a complete circle. Let cook on one side until the side up is dry, then quickly flip it over to cook only a few seconds on the other side. The crepes should have a nice tawny color on each side.

Make the filling:

Heat the olive oil and butter in a saucepan, add the onion and cook for a couple of minutes. Add the wine and cognac, then the chopped scallops and shrimp and cook another minute until the shrimp are pink. Add the heavy cream, lower the heat and reduce the sauce until it’s the consistency of pancake batter. Add the lemon, saffron, anise, salt and pepper and simmer for a a few minutes on low heat. Let cool.
Heat the oven to 375F/200C.
Butter a rectangular casserole. Spoon a couple of tablespoons of the seafood mixture down the middle of each crêpe. Fold up the at the ends of the filling and then fold over the sides to enclose the filling. Lay each crepe side by side in the baking dish and dot with butter. Bake 10 minutes or until the tops of the crêpes are golden.

The trick: You may use an actual bechamel sauce if you have it on hand. It is a bit thicker than using only cream and wine, but you can make it ahead of time, using a bit of the broth from shrimp or scallops, and put this whole recipe together in minutes. Make the bechamel by adding the sweet onion to the melted butter before the flour, then add the flour, milk, broth and cream and you will have a savory bechamel, good for many dishes, including lasagne, the beginning of a soufflé and so on.

I buy raw shrimp and use the heads and carapaces for broth, but you may use cooked shrimp to lighten your load, even if the flavor is not as intense as homemade broth

The wild fennel that grows all over our hills is also a great addition to your spice rack. Collect the yellow flowers at summer’s end and let them dry a bit. Rub them through a sieve for the lovely pollen from the fennel flowers and it keeps well all year long.

We also have wild fennugrek in our hills for curries. What riches, and perhaps there are wild herbs near you. Sometimes they are found in parking lots!

 

Meet the chef

P-O Life reader, Suzanne Dunaway, has cooked since she was 5 years old, when she made cinnamon pinwheels from her mother’s pastry dough.

She LOVES to cook. Some might say she LIVES to cook. The smells, the tastes, the textures…

She is a firm believer in simplicity and creates her recipes in the ethos of ‘anyone can cook’.

After years of experience in her own kitchen, cooking schools and private classes all over the world, in this weekly blog, Suzanne shares with us her PO-inspired creations.

With many strings to her bow, she is also an artist and columnist, with two published cookbooks.

Get a copy of her ‘No Need to Knead: Handmade Artisan Breads in 90 Minutes’ here  

Or her 5 star rated book ‘Rome, at Home: The Spirit of La Cucina Romana in Your Own Kitchen’ here

All content and recipes are copyright of Suzanne Dunaway.

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