Читать книгу The French Menu Cookbook: The Food and Wine of France - Season by Delicious Season - Richard Olney - Страница 40

Crêpes are unleavened, paper-thin pancakes. Depending on the use to which they are put, they may be called “crêpes” or pannequets. They form the “shirts” in en chemise preparations and the crisp surfaces of some cromesquis when stuffing enveloped in a crêpe is fried in deep fat. Under certain circumstances, they may replace the sheet of paste used to enrobe cannelloni.

The following recipe will serve for all the preparations in this book. For unsweetened dishes, the sugar should be eliminated. One may count on 18 to 20 small crêpes or 10 to 12 large with these proportions.

It is not terribly important to remain loyal to precise ingredients or measurements. Crêpes are good made with milk or beer, with or without the addition of cognac or liqueur, and perfectly acceptable made with water. The batter may be enriched by the addition of cream, may contain more or fewer eggs, and olive oil may replace the butter. Finely chopped fines herbes added to an hors d’oeuvre or main-course crêpe batter is an attractive refinement.

The batter should be thin—the consistency of very fresh cream. The pan should be in impeccable condition. If a large number of crêpes must be made, one may save a great deal of time by working with 2 or 3 pans over different burners. Crêpes may be made in advance, in which case they must be stacked on a plate neatly, one on top of the other, and covered with a towel, to avoid their drying out.