Feast On Crepes

I had a scientific talk with my mother the other day - about pancakes - or more specifically what we as children once called fun-a-cookin'.

The conversation was prompted by the pending arrival of the spring holidays, that series of weekend mornings when many families went out to restaurants for festive breakfasts, but we did not. We stayed at home, welcomed in the relatives, and ate crepes.

I never cared much for pancakes as a kid. I had been spoiled by pfannkuchen, not even knowing what pfannkuchen were or how to pronounce them.

But I knew how to eat them. You spread homemade strawberry jam on them (sometimes grape jelly), rolled them up loosely and ate five or six at a sitting. Other children in the neighborhood had pancakes made from mixes on Sunday mornings. I was eating German crepes - sometimes with sugar and cinnamon instead of jam, sometimes with maple syrup. The reasons had less to do with gastronomic pretension than with household reality.

We had flour. We had milk. And because a couple of relatives out in the country had a small chicken farm, we always had eggs.

Hence, in good times or bad, my mother made pfannkuchen for breakfast almost every weekend morning. Corrupting the old-country German language which we had never learned too well, my sister and I called them fun-a-cookin'. The smell of cooking pfannkuchen, to this day, for me connotes the opening hours of a day off. An early-morning treat with a promise of impending leisure.

But what a simple and substantial treat it was. And is.

There are hundreds of recipes for crepes (or blintzes, which are cottage cheese-stuffed, corner-folded crepes), but for the purposes of this article (and the nudgings of nostalgia) I wanted to get my mother's recipe.

"Exactly how did you make them?" I asked her.

"By touch," she said.

(Touch? Oh, great, I thought. I can see it now. Start out with one well-developed sense of touch, fold in imagination, two eggs, etc. etc. and send it all to the Times Test Kitchen, which will scream in horror.)

"What do you mean by that?" I said aloud. "Precisely."

"Well, I don't do it precisely. I start with two eggs, add in some flour . . ."

"How much flour? A cup? Three-quarters of a cup?"

"Oh, no. Two, or maybe three heaping tablespoons. Then I add milk."

"How much milk?"

"Enough."

"Enough?"

"Enough to make a batter like a heavy cream. Look. I'll go make some and call you back."

Much too early the next morning, the phone rattled me out of bed.

"Sorry," she said from Connecticut. "I forgot about the time difference. It's two eggs, a half-cup of flour and three-quarters of a cup of milk. You can add in a tiny pinch of salt, but I usually don't."

"What about a little sugar?"

"No, because we usually roll them with jam, but you could. Using three tablespoons of batter for each crepe, you should end up with about eight eight-inch crepes."

Enough for two or three breakfasters. You can double or triple the recipe, if you choose.

"Do you ever use melted butter in the batter?" I asked.

"You can, as with French crepes. But for pfannkuchen I don't, because I cook them each in a little melted butter."

Crepe cookery in today's two-worker households is a bit time-restrictive. The batter - whether for entree or dessert crepes - can be put together in seconds; a minute or two with a blender at the most (my mother used an old, reliable hand-cranked egg beater). But ideally, the batter needs to rest before pan-frying, and that takes time.

I like to rest a crepe batter at least an hour. Two hours are better. It allows the flour particles to blend, to moisten and to expand with the egg and milk and shortening - making for a lighter, thinner crepe. For pancakes, lumps in the batter are fine. For crepes, no. And, yes, you can make the batter the night before and refrigerate it (covered). It will improve the overall quality.

The batters for dessert crepes and entree crepes differ. Entree crepes are made with whole eggs and without sugar or sweeteners; dessert crepes often call for just the beaten yolks (or adding yolks to beaten whole eggs) and the addition of a tablespoon or two of sugar and also sometimes incorporate sweet liqueurs like Triple Sec or Gran Marnier.

You can make an all-crepe holiday brunch by starting with entree crepes (mushrooms with leftover chicken, perhaps, covered with a hot Mornay sauce, which is a basic bechamel with swiss cheese melted in - and maybe a splash of dry vermouth, if you like) and then proceed on a half-hour later to dessert crepes. Like crepes suzette.

Both batters can be made the night before. Or you can always get up a little early and figure on eating at mid-morning. If you celebrate the religious holidays, you can, of course, make the batters before you go to church.

Pray now. Fry later.

Which brings us to the burning issue of crepe pans. Nothing in the technology of modern kitchen science has had as much unnecessary misguided mythology attached to it. You can make good crepes in just about anything - from cast iron to spun steel to copper-plated silver.

But by far the easiest way to go is a cheap, eight-inch (or six-inch), mass-produced, thick aluminum nonstick pan with a SilverStone-lined interior. If you use wooden or hard plastic implements with it, it will last for years. The new nonstick surfaces are much improved and have greater scratch resistance. A well-seasoned, inexpensive steel pan (not stainless), like a commercial size chef's fry pan, works fine.

Polished aluminum, after it has been used for a while, is great. Scanpan is flawless. I avoid enameled finishes and stainless steel, mainly because neither can be effectively seasoned, although I love my Le Creuset and All-Clad cookware for other purposes.

If you do a lot of crepe and egg cooking, I think it is worthwhile to dedicate one pan to it. Just whisk it clean with the swipe of a paper towel and perhaps a little hot water - no soap or detergents - oil it lightly while its still warm and hang it up until the next time.

Crepes suzette are not commonly thought of as a breakfast dish, but they are certainly festive, easily made, flame dramatically and they go beautifully with fruit juices, champagne and wine and fruit-juice combinations. Besides, nothing in the world tastes better with a good espresso or French-roasted coffee.

The crepes suzette, like so many other of the world's good things, was not the result of necessity and invention, but of plain, human dumb luck.

Henri Charpentier, who was the chef for Albert, Prince of Wales, was trying to invent a special crepe sauce when his pan full of cordials caught fire. In an attempt to smother the fire, Charpentier tossed the already cooked crepes into the pan - and when he retrieved them, found the flamed liqueur and carmelized sugar was delicious soaked into the crepes.

Charpentier's dessert crepe recipe (as retrieved from "The Joy of Cooking") goes as follows:

Three whole eggs.

Two tablespoons of all-purpose flour.

One tablespoon water; one tablespoon milk.

A pinch of salt.

In a small fry pan with a five-inch bottom, foam one tablespoon of butter and gently pour in just enough batter to cover the bottom. Cook one minute, turn and cook for a few seconds more. Remove and store warm until the rest of the crepes are done. Sauce as follows:

Blend together or process a quarter cup sugar with the zest of two oranges (or the finely peeled and minced orange peel) until well-mixed. Add a half-pound of butter, preferably unsalted, by droplets cream in a half-cup of orange juice and three tablespoons of orange brandy or liqueur until the mixture is creamy. Cover and refrigerate until needed.

When ready to assemble, melt the orange butter in a chafing dish, dip the fried crepes into it, fold each crepe twice - for a quarter arc of a circle, and array in a pattern in the dish or a skillet.

When bubbling add carefully about three ounces each of orange brandy and cognac and a generous sprinkling of sugar. Ignite the heated brandies, averting your face. Shake the pan until the flames subside.

Take a bow.

Serve.

Frankly, historical respects aside, I like my mother's crepe recipe better. It's not as delicate, not as "eggy" and easier to handle.

(Copyright 1992, John Hinterberger. All rights reserved)

John Hinterberger's food columns and restaurant reviews appear

Sundays in Pacific and Fridays in Tempo. Tom Reese is a Seattle

Times staff photographer.