French Style Pancakes with Egg

I don’t know any people that don’t like pancakes. Depending on the filling, you can serve them for breakfast, lunch or dinner.  You can have them with a sweet or savoury filing. You can have them extra thin or thick. The possibilities are probably endless.

I also prepare them in many different ways and I am sure that slowly I will share all of them with you on my blog. But for today – pancake recipe in a French bistro style. We had them for the first time a few years ago when we went to Paris. It was late lunch time and we had already been walking for hours so we needed a few moments to rest and – something small to eat. We found a nice looking bistro that was packed with customers (good sign) but luckily there was still a table for us. Some of us ordered a pancake with an egg but we all tried it and liked it so much that every now and then I make it myself at home.

They are pretty straightforward to make and even easier, if you have the pancakes prepared earlier. Since this is a savoury dish, it works really well (and it is healthier) if pancakes are prepared with whole meal flour but a combination or just plain flour is fine, too. The only tricky part in this recipe is making sure the egg stays in the centre and the edges of the pancake don’t unfold but I am sure that with the below hints it will not be a problem. And there is another great advantage of making the dish this way: putting the pancakes under the hot grill allows serving them to everybody at the same time.

INGREDIENTS (for 4 pancakes with eggs and more to have with other filling):

Pancakes:

250g plain flour (or whole meal flour, or combination of plain and whole meal),

250 ml milk,

250 ml water,

2 eggs,

pinch of salt,

sunflower oil for frying.

Filling:

80g grated cheese (e.g. Cheddar),

100g cooked ham (slices),

4 eggs,

Salt and pepper.

METHOD:

1. Put all the pancakes’ ingredients to a food processor and process till combined. Alternatively – use a hand mixer or a whisker.
2. Smear a big pancake frying pan with oil (you can do it by putting a drop of oil on the pan and smearing it with a folded kitchen paper) and heat it; fry pancakes. From the above proportions you will end up with more than 4 pancake so you can have the rest with any other filling.
3. Heat a grill to hot and prepare a baking tray by greasing it with a bit of oil.
4. In the middle of each of 4 pancakes put a quarter of the cheese, slices of ham and fold each pancake like an envelope leaving an uncovered area in the centre.
5. Heat up a drop of oil on a frying pan and put one pancake in, gently pour an egg to the uncovered part of the pancake (you may lift one edge before you pour the egg); season and fry for a minute pressing the edges of the pancake to make sure they don’t unfold; transfer into a prepared baking tray; repeat with the remaining 3 pancakes.
6. Put the baking tray with the 4 pancakes under the hot grill for 2-3 minutes till the eggs are set but the yolks are still runny. (Grilling time may vary depending on the type of grill so it is safer – at least if you are making them for the first time - to keep an eye on the eggs).
7. Serve with a salad made of different types of lettuce, tomatoes and vinaigrette.

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Asian Soup with Salmon and Kale

I had a glimpse of how it is to be on the TV series Masterchef. I mean the moment when participants open a Mystery Box, they can see ingredients and quickly have to decide what they are going to cook. Some of them play it safe and make something they have done before, others take a risk and play it by the ear or – rather in this context – by their taste.

In my case, my Mystery Box was my fridge and the kitchen cabinets before shopping was done when there are still many - but often odd - ingredients not necessarily meant for a specific meal. Additionally everybody was getting hungry so I didn’t have all the time in the world to think what to cook and then cook it. My first idea was the safe one: stir fry. But then I thought that even though I love stir fries, I should go for something different. So I cooked this healthy soup instead.

I included in it ingredients that are typical for Asia: ginger, chilli, soya and fish sauce. White wine might not be the obvious choice, rice wine would probably be better but I didn’t have it then. Overall the combination of flavours in the stock works really well and addition of salmon, noodles and kale makes it a complete meal a whole family can enjoy on a busy weekday evening when nobody has hours to cook and nobody wants to wait for hours to eat!

INGREDIENTS (for 4 portions):

400g skinless and boneless salmon fillet cut into 2 cm cubes,

1 tsp sesame oil,

1.5l vegetable stock,

5 tbsp white wine,

2 tbsp soya sauce

1 tbsp fish sauce,

chilli flakes,

3 tsp grated ginger,

150g kale thorn into small pieces (without stems),

150g bean sprouts,

100g Chinese/wok noodles.

METHOD:

1. Put the salmon cubes into a bowl, add the sesame oil, stir well and let it marinate until you need it.
2. Heat up the vegetable stock, add the white wine, soya and fish sauces, chilli flakes and ginger.
3. When the spiced stock is boiling, add the Chinese noodles (you may break them into smaller pieces so it will be easier to eat the soup), bring to boil, add the salmon and kale and cook for 2 minutes.
4. Serve the soup with bean sprouts.

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Spinach with Raisins [vegetarian]

Unlike many people, I really don’t have any bad “spinach memories” from my childhood. And it is not because I liked it, it is because I didn’t have it at all for the first several years of my life. When I finally tried it, I wasn’t impressed as it looked and – probably - tasted like boiled grass. Luckily I was wise enough to give it a second chance so when I tried pancakes with well-seasoned, slightly garlicky spinach filling, I felt it was the beginning of a long-term relationship.

This relationship evolved slowly because at first I would just have a variation of the pureed spinach with béchamel sauce and garlic served either with pancakes or even - simply but so yummy – with mashed potatoes and a fried egg. After a while, to my tiny repertoire of spinach recipes I added a spinach soup. And that was it for quite some time. That was it until I spent more time researching spinach attributes.

Probably we all have heard that spinach is a very healthy food but what does it really mean? Due to a wide variety of phytonutrients, spinach provides excellent anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer benefits, especially in case of stomach, skin, breast and prostate cancer. It also has anti-oxidant properties that prevent (or at least lower the risk) of blood-vessel related problems like atherosclerosis and high blood pressure. Spinach is an excellent source of Vitamin K, Calcium and Magnesium that are key for maintaining healthy and strong bones. And no wonder that this green leafy vegetable is on top of the list of nutrient dense food as apart from the 3 listed earlier, it is also a very good source of 16 other nutrients: Vitamins A, B1, B2, B6, C and E, Manganese, Folate, Iron, Copper, Potassium, Fibre, Phosphorus, Zinc, Protein and Choline.

Realizing how healthy spinach really was, I decided to use it much more often. These days I include it in soups, dhals, pastas or salads. I know that addition of a few handfuls of spinach to a dish is so easy and will make it healthier and prettier. But I also know that spinach deserves to be a main ingredient like in the recipe below in which I re-created a wonderful meal I had a few years ago in a restaurant. It can be served either as a warm starter or a side dish perfect with baked/roasted fish.

My spinach story is clearly a love story. If you haven’t started yours yet, please give spinach a chance with the below recipe. It is highly likely you will fall for it just the way I did.

INGREDIENTS (2 portions):

75g raisins,

1 tbsp butter,

1 small onion, finely chopped,

2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced,

250g spinach,

100 ml double cream,

1-1.5 tbsp honey,

Salt and pepper.

METHOD:

1. Soak the raisins in hot water.
2. On a medium heat melt the butter in a big pot, add the onion and garlic and fry stirring for 2-3 minutes, till translucent but not burnt.
3. Add the spinach and fry it stirring constantly until almost wilted; add the cream, honey, raisins and the seasoning.

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Cookie Dough Easter Eggs

There would be no Easter without Easter eggs. At this time of the year they appear on menus and tables in many different forms: stuffed eggs, chocolate eggs or just eggs with mayonnaise. And to this selection, I would like to add a recipe for another type – delicious and beautiful Cookie Dough Eggs that easily can be a centerpiece decoration of any Easter table.

You will need very few ingredients to make them, just a bit of time to form and decorate them but in truth - this is just pure fun! When they are done, they have all the parts (though in different colours) that a regular egg has: a shell (chocolate), a white (edible cookie dough), and a yolk (dulce de leche). Although the cookie dough is prepared slightly differently - by whizzing together butter biscuits, walnuts and dulce de leche – you end up with a yummy result and additionally, you don’t have to worry about eating raw flour or eggs.

INGREDIENTS (for 8-10 eggs):

150g plain butter biscuits,

25g ground walnuts,

50g  + 150g dulce de leche,

100g white chocolate,

colourful pearls for decoration.

METHOD:

1. On a small plate covered with cling film put 10 portions of dulce de leche and place the plate in a freezer for at least 1 hour. The portions should equal to approx. half a teaspoon and you will use the 50g of dulce de leche to prepare them. The longer they are kept in the freezer, the easier it will be to shape the eggs later.
2. Put the biscuits and ground walnuts to the food processor, whizz them until they resemble fine crumbs, add the 150g of dulce de leche and process till everything is combined.
3. Divide the dough into 10 equal portions and start shaping the eggs: take approximately half of the portion of the dough for one egg and with your fingers create a small disc. Put one portion of the frozen dulce de leche inside the disc, take the other half of the dough to close up the filling and roll it gently with palms of your hands to make an egg shape. Put on a plate (wider part down) and press gently to make sure the egg stands. Continue with other eggs. If you feel it is easier for you to make bigger eggs, then add more dough to each portion. This way you may end up with 8 eggs.
4. When all the eggs are ready, put them to a fridge for minimum 30 minutes.
5. Melt the white chocolate over a pan of simmering water, pour it to a cup.
6. Take one egg and pierce its bottom part with a sharp fork, making sure the egg stays firmly on the fork. Dip the egg in the white chocolate, let the excess flow down. Before the chocolate sets on the egg, decorate it with pearls and then gently place on a plate. You can take the egg of the fork without damaging the decoration with another fork that you put under the egg and gently lift it off the piercing fork. Continue with the remaining eggs.
7. The decorated eggs should be kept in the fridge.

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