Oh Crepe!

Ok, I admit it. I messed up.

Normally I'm fairly rigorous about my mise-en-place, that French cooking term which translates, roughly, to "Exactly how dumb would you have to be to start cooking without checking first if you have all your ingredients?" (It does lose something in the translation.)

A couple of weekends ago, my vision of a perfect-50's-television-family Sunday morning breakfast of freshly made peach crepes came crashing back to reality when, part way through mixing the batter, I found I didn't have the milk called for in the recipe. Rummaging through the refrigerator, the closest thing to milk I could find was sour cream. Hardly an ideal substitute, but it's my firm belief that if an idea is the only one you have, it doesn't matter much if it's good or bad. (MacGyver would be so proud.)

As you might expect, the sour cream made for a much thicker batter than would the milk. If you've ever made crepes, you know that, while they're not at all hard to make, the thickness/thinness of the batter is critical. I found that increasing the amount of water called for in the original recipe brought the batter back to its intended thickness, while still allowing the nice flavor added by the sour cream to come through. The disaster for which breakfast was originally headed was, I am happy to report, avoided. It turned out so well that the sour-cream version has now become my go-to crepe recipe.

Crepes, of course, are one of the great, versatile foods. Fill them with fruit for breakfast, with meat for dinner; I've even heard of filling them with lunch meat and cheese, similar to a wrap, for lunch. Remember, it's your crepe. Have fun with it! (My son did try using peanut butter and it was terrible. Even crepes, it would seem, have their limits.)

For the filling, a peach-compote of sorts was easy to make using an approach that will probably seem familiar to anyone who has ever made fruit jam.

To make about 8 crepes, combine 1 cup of all-purpose flour, ¼ teaspoon of salt, 2 tablespoons of butter substitute (melted), 2 egg-substitute eggs, 1 cup of low-fat sour cream and 1/2 cup of water in a bowl and mix well with an electric hand mixer on high. Add additional water, ¼ cup at a time, until the batter is the consistency of heavy cream. Cover with plastic wrap and let rest in the refrigerator for 1-2 hours.

After the batter has finished resting, heat a non-stick sauté pan over low heat. When it's heated, remove it from the stove, melt about a teaspoon of butter substitute in it, and add about ¼ cup of the batter. (Unlike pancakes, crepes are very thin.) Swirl the batter around to cover the surface of the pan, put it back on the stove and increase the heat to medium. (I recently saw one of my favorite tv chefs, Michael Chiarello, add a teaspoon of toasted chopped hazelnuts to the batter at this point. What a great idea!) When the crepe is browned on the bottom and firm enough to be flipped (usually about two minutes, but keep an eye on it), flip the crepe or use a spatula and your fingers (carefully!) to turn it over and cook it on the opposite side until it has the desired brownness. (If you're new at flipping, don't be discouraged if the first few flips don't work out. It's really the only challenging part of making a crepe, and it does get much better with just a little practice. The first time I made crepes I had to throw out the first three or four attempts. Stay with it. And this is a case where a good pan really does make a difference.) Repeat the process until all the batter is used, rebuttering the pan after each crepe, and stacking the cooked crepes as they finish. Keeping the stack covered with a clean towel to prevent them from drying out.

Of course, even good crepes need a nice filling.

For the filling, combine in a medium saucepan 1-1/2 cups of sugar and the juice and zest of 1 lemon. Heat it over very low heat, stirring often, until the mixture is melted. (This should take a few minutes.)

Once the sugar mixture is melted, add 6 peaches, sliced into eighths, ¼ tsp ground nutmeg, and 1 tablespoon of butter substitute, and increase the heat to medium. Cook until the peaches are soft and the liquid is reduced. Turn off heat and let the peach mixture rest to allow the liquid to thicken. Fill the crepes, roll them up, sprinkle them with a little confectioner's sugar, and serve warm.

(An equally nice apple filling can be made by using apples instead of peaches, and 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon along with the nutmeg. I used golden delicious and it was delicious, but experiment with whatever your favorite apple is.)

After you've filled and folded over the crepe, don't forget to sprinkle confectioner's sugar on top!

Till next week, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)