This is gist of the somewhat confusing piece of advice I received from Slightly this morning. We were discussing Shrove Tuesday (that's today) and the fact that the Brits have pancakes whereas the French, who call the day Mardi Gras have sweet fried dumplings usually served as 5cm wide, 20cm long strips of dough, one extremity of which is passed through a slit in its middle.
Of course the French also have a pancake day. It is called Chandeleur (the Brit's Candlemas) and is celebrated on 02 February. As I felt a sudden, and mostly unheard of, urge for cooking this morning and because dumplings would have been to complicated to do (I don't have the frying bits), I decided to follow the aforementioned advice and make pancakes. Well, not pancakes really but rather, going halfway between total aculturation and French stubbornness, crêpes.
Since I don't cook (while the Brits may do so, a self respecting Frenchman (and in light of this factoid I must be one) would not consider doing pasta and rice, cooking), I had to nip out to Tesco and get the ingredients after a quick google for a recipe. Soon I was mixing the stuff away...
Put 500gr of plain flour in a bowl, add a pinch of salt, 6 eggs and one liter of milk. Mix carefully to avoid creating lumps. I missed that bit and did get lumps in my mixture. I managed to skim most of them though. When you are done, add 2 or 3 spoonfuls of rum.
I then greased my pan (not the proper sort of pan for crêpes, which should be flat and with very low adges) and started cooking the darned things. I am pleased to say I didn't went to badly and in about 40 min, I found myself with enough crêpes to feed the French army. Did I mention that the figures I gave above were for 8 persons?
I had a few but there are still plenty left. It would be nice to have someone to share them with but no one was available (as they say of Cabinet Ministers on the radio).
Go on, give me a hand, help yourself.
Happy Shrove Tuesday!
And, yesh, jey do tashte rajher nishe... shank you.
Of course the French also have a pancake day. It is called Chandeleur (the Brit's Candlemas) and is celebrated on 02 February. As I felt a sudden, and mostly unheard of, urge for cooking this morning and because dumplings would have been to complicated to do (I don't have the frying bits), I decided to follow the aforementioned advice and make pancakes. Well, not pancakes really but rather, going halfway between total aculturation and French stubbornness, crêpes.
Since I don't cook (while the Brits may do so, a self respecting Frenchman (and in light of this factoid I must be one) would not consider doing pasta and rice, cooking), I had to nip out to Tesco and get the ingredients after a quick google for a recipe. Soon I was mixing the stuff away...
Put 500gr of plain flour in a bowl, add a pinch of salt, 6 eggs and one liter of milk. Mix carefully to avoid creating lumps. I missed that bit and did get lumps in my mixture. I managed to skim most of them though. When you are done, add 2 or 3 spoonfuls of rum.
I then greased my pan (not the proper sort of pan for crêpes, which should be flat and with very low adges) and started cooking the darned things. I am pleased to say I didn't went to badly and in about 40 min, I found myself with enough crêpes to feed the French army. Did I mention that the figures I gave above were for 8 persons?
I had a few but there are still plenty left. It would be nice to have someone to share them with but no one was available (as they say of Cabinet Ministers on the radio).
Go on, give me a hand, help yourself.
Happy Shrove Tuesday!
And, yesh, jey do tashte rajher nishe... shank you.
They do look rather good, I'm impressed!!
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