The Crepe

Ok… So a little something more than the recipe. I live in Park Slope Brooklyn. The neighborhood is pretty magnificent. Its very safe, very beautiful, and oozing young parents, young professionals, teens and recent grads. One of my friends who I went to college with (this is a shout out to Miha) has been extremely entrepreneurial as of late and had this pretty genius idea of opening up a small creperie in the neighborhood. I’ve been thinking that there are truly a number of things that you can do with a crepe (I’m not sure if I listed that Forrest Gump shrimp list already in a previous post, but its pretty much infinite… looking back I spit off that list referencing potatoes… same deal)

Have I totally lost you? Too long of a tangent?

Anyhow, I’ve put a lot of thought into it. A Creperie would work pretty much anywhere in Brooklyn provided you’re on a main avenue (5th or 7th). But I think it would work even better if it was next to a bar. Everyone has their own preferences when it comes to sweet or savory, but can you imagine stumbling out of a bar, and for less than the price of a beer you can get a delicious stuffed crepe. For those with a sweet tooth, how about a traditional Crepe Suzette (which is what we made today), or for the salty side, how about a crepe stuffed with ham mushrooms and gruyere, topped with melted gruyere (We also made this recipe)

It would be open for brunch on the weekend, but rather than paying 15 bucks for eggs, you can get a couple of gourmet egg stuffed crepes. The prices would be down to earth and the options would be endless.

Well, Maybe its Miha’s dream that I have formulated to be my own. Either way it is a wonderful idea. The best part is, it wouldn’t just be a flip a crepe and fill, I’d be able to put to use the expertise that I am developing. There would be special crepes for special occasions. I DON’T KNOW?! It’s just a thought. Have to start somewhere, right?

Well, the crepe suzette was a plain crepe prepared normally. However, we prepared a compound butter for it consisting of some orange zest, orange liqueur and some juice from the orange, mixed all together. I actually forgot to put it in the fridge for a while, but it really didn’t make a difference. After we had a bunch of crepes made, we melted some of this butter, poured a little juice in the pan and then threw a crepe in, folded it once, got some of this butter juice on it, and folded it again. After we did this with a few crepes and had them in the pan, we threw a little brandy in there and flambéed it (to be fair, we forgot to flambee it, but it doesn’t really make too much of a difference since the butter is so tasty). The best part, in my opinion was we took an orange and peeled the zest, then julienned the zest. After blanching it for a minute, we put it in a pan with some grenadine and a touch of water and reduced it until the zest took on a red candied coating. It looked awesome, and it tasted pretty nice. We then layered a couple of the folded crepes, drizzled some of the butter sauce it cooked in, and topped with a couple of orange supremes and the candied zest, and it was beautiful, and unbearably delicious. (how could it not be?)

That was the highlight for me.
I guess as a pointer, which we’re taught in class, we’re supposed to let the batter rest in the fridge for an ENTIRE HOUR before we use it. It rests the gluten, and makes it smoother, so they say.

We also made fried apple fritters, which were really delicious. The batter had some beer and orange zest in it, and it was just delicious as well.