Food, travel and culture – from Perth and beyond

In case it wasn’t yet noticed, I’ve had a dry spell. I haven’t blogged in awhile as I had other more pressing matters, and seeing as Ange has been about 4000km away, she would have to find me first if she wanted to kill me, which gives me about 5 hours to do a runner. Well as a peace offering I guess I should blog about SOMETHING. So I racked my mind and thought… hmm… what have I made recently that has turned out really good? Over the past year, I’ve been trying out weird and wonderful recipes that I found and printed off the Internet. Some turned out well, others… let just say it was still edible but I won’t be making it ever again.

I looked at several recipes online. I’m not gonna tell you which ones, because there was so many of them, but basically the thing I find with internet recipes, is that they give you the main details, but there are little pockets wisdoms or secrets that they don’t seem to share. They may just be a small step/ingredient, but they can make the biggest difference. What I tend to do, is compare about two or three main recipes and see what the common element is. Then I look at what is missing from each recipe. This gives me a good idea of what is or isn’t an important element to the dish. I then follow the recipe, but also add in the elements that the other ones tell me about. I think the end result works out quite well. One such recipe which I worked out was the crepe.

I’m not such a huge fan of sweets. I know, shock horror, despite the novelty I find in looking at, baking, making, decorating and tasting desserts and other sweets, I’m on team savory. Chocolate cakes, take it or leave it, but a big bowl of beer battered chips dunked in aoili and I’m there! =D That being said, when it comes to everyday cooking, I don’t really like following recipes. After researching the recipes out on the big ol Internet, I worked out the common elements with making crepes:

Equal amounts of liquid to the flour, and one egg for every half cup of flour you use. Depending on the type of crepes you are making, sugar is optional. Some recipes tell you to use half and half of water and milk. It’s suppose to make the mixture lighter as the water will evaporate while you cook, where as with the milk, the moisture will evaporate, but the milk solids will stay, making it heavier. Apparently this is the same theory for when making scrambled eggs. Personally I don’t find that much of a difference anyways, but if you are unsure, keep in mind that skim milk and hilo milk tend to be more water than milk particles(can anyone let me know if they actually do something to the milk or do they just add water?) So, now that I’ve ranted for a bit to appease She-who-is-President, I’ll share with you my version of savour crepes.

This will serve about two people.

First you should make the filling, allowing it to cool down a bit and its much easier to fold the crepe while it’s still hot.

For the filling, I used a recipe that my friend’s mother, who, being of Italian decent, seems to always be asking me if I’m hungry and offering me a “quick” snack, which is usually something that tastes like heaven and looks like hell to make. Anyways, I finally asked her about one of her “chicken and leek pie” fillings and found out it is actually very easy. This filling is also wonderful wrapped with puff pastry which was what she told me to do, but I thought it would go perfectly with the crepes. I was right.

Creamy Chicken and Leek

Ingredients:

- Two chicken breasts/thighs, skin and fat removed. Diced into bite-sized chunks
- One small-medium onion, diced
- One small-medium leek, diced
- Two cloves of garlic crushed/minced
- One packet (250g) Philadelphia cream cheese (I went with the light one)
- Cooking oil
- Salt & Pepper to taste

Directions:

- Heat a pan on medium-high heat and add the oil
- Throw in the garlic and stir, but do not let it change colour.
- Add the onions and the leek to the pan, cook until translucent.
- Add the chicken chunks and cook until the chicken is browned and cooked.
- Season it well, and turn down the heat to low-medium.
- Add the block of Philly, and stir through. It should melt a bit, let it simmer on low heat for a bit to ensure that the chicken is well cooked.
Set to the side and make the crepes. If  you are going to wrap it in puff pastry, make this in advance and let it cool down completely so the philly isn’t so runny and it won’t melt the pastry.

Crepes

Ingredients:

- One cup of Plain Flour
- One cup of Milk
- Two eggs (average-large)
- Some butter and oil for cooking
- Salt & Pepper to taste (optional, replace with some sugar if making sweet crepes)
-preferred filling, in this case the above chicken and leek.

Directions

- Place sifted flour into a bowl. I used a glass measuring jug, so that it would make it easier to pour later, but that’s a personal preference.

- If you haven’t already done so, you can season the flour a little bit, keeping in mind that you will be putting some filling in.

- Break the eggs into the milk, and lightly beat to break up the yolk.

- Pour the egg & milk mix into the the flour and whisk. I used a balloon whisk, but if you don’t have one, I don’t see anything wrong with using a fork (or a chopstick like my mum Hehe!). The mixture should be quite runny, but smooth.

- Heat a non-stick pan (until recently, I used a regular stainless steel pan and I cannot emphasize just how wonderful a good non-stick pan is!!) on medium heat and melt a tiny bit of butter, I just used a dab as the pan is non-stick anyways. If the pan is too hot the milk solids in the butter will brown, but to prevent this happening you can add just a drop of vegetable oil to the butter.

-Pour a bit the mix into the pan, and quickly before it sets, swirl it around the pan to spread it out thinly. I think I put in about a 1/4 cup of the mix at a time. You swirl it by picking up the pan off the stove and moving it about.

-Let it cook for a bit, but using your spatula, you can lift the edges up a bit to make it easier for you to flip it later.

- Once it has cooked and has that colouring, flip the crepe and cook the other side. This won’t take as long as it will be the inside.

- I like to flip my crepe back to the original side, as I find that it has a nicer colouring to than the second side, and in the pan, spoon some of the chicken and leek mix into the centre of the crepe, sprinkle some grated cheese(this is entirely optional, but I LOVE cheese). Fold it up which ever way you like. You can keep them in a warm (80-100c) oven until you are ready to serve them, but don’t leave them there too long or it will dry out.

I serve mine like a little bags so that the filling is fully encased, with some salad or steam vegetables (brother asked for chips with his too). But I do it like a bag, so when you cut into it, the sauce and the cheese oozes out and has a nice little surprise for the diner.

Do give it a try and see what you come up with. You can add any sort of filling to it, its all completely up to you. Sorry I don’t have any pictures, but I was famished that day so I couldn’t wait. >.<

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