Of Crepes and Griddles [recipe on!]

Killgrimage

A neighbor recently gave me a fuckawesome electric griddle that she never uses. So far I've learned how to make:

pancakes
french toast
bacon
eggs over easy (I never break the yolk!)
normal toast
silver dollar pancakes
goddamn bacon!

Anyway, I want to learn how to make other stuff on it, like crepes. Now, I hear they are easy to make, but every recipe I see they are made in a pan. That sounds like bullshit, I want to use the flat inviting non-stick surface of my griddle.

Anyway, recipes anyone? Feel free to suggest other foodstuffs and meals I can make as well!

mts

you want a pan so you can swirl it so the crepes don't get thick

EggyToast

Or a surface around/below your griddle so you can catch the extra batter when you flatten out your crepe.

Crepes are really simple. Here's the basics:

* 1 cup all-purpose flour
* 2 eggs
* 1/2 cup milk
* 1/2 cup water
* 1/4 teaspoon salt
* 2 tablespoons butter, melted

Mix it all up, and that's your batter.

Some people like them with more egg, some with less. It should be relatively thin so when you pour it on your cooking surface it spreads almost flat.

That's it. Let it cook until the up side is starting to firm up, then flip it. You want to wait for it to be mostly firm or else you'll spray batter everywhere when you flip it.

Cook some basic crepes to get the hang of it, then worry about fancy shit. I tend to add a pinch of sugar and a bunch of vanilla to my crepes, but that's me.

vonPoonBurGer

There are other ways to make crepes that don't involve a pan. I used to frequent a place that made great crepes in Vancouver, they used a commercial crepe maker that was essentially a round griddle, and definitely not something you can pick up and shake/roll. These wooden tools are what they used:

The one that looks like a wooden rod with a piece of baseboard attached is a scraper, you use that to spread out the batter. The one that looks like a wooden knife is the turner, you use that to pick up the crepe and flip it. You could probably use a standard kitchen implement for flipping the crepe, but an actual crepe scraper (or something very similar) is probably necessary to get really thin crepes. You have to spread out the batter quickly to ensure it's even in thickness and evenly cooked. This video shows how you use one:

Making crepes

As you can see from the video, with the right technique you get a nearly perfect circular crepe, so it should work even on a square griddle.

starmanbrand

Sounds like you're locked into the mind set that griddles are for breakfast only, my friend.

Olive oil the surface, toss some seasoned and thin cut skirt steak on there, after a couple minutes some sliced veggies? Put it on a bun with your favorite variety of melty cheese and you got yourself a nice steak sammitch.

parcook a tortilla on it, then lay some cheese and sliced green chilis, close it up and cook a little longer. Bam, quesadilla city.

If you attempt to make crepes on it you'll probably only infuriate yourself.

Jawa

Crepes? You mean really thin pancakes?

Seriously though Crepes aren't just for breakfast, if you add:
1/4 Teaspoon of Vanilla
1 Tablespoon of Sugar*

to EggyToast's recipe you pretty much have dessert crepes which are delicious with yogurts, chocolate, and Ice cream.


*(Measurements might be off because my recipe is a bit different.)

Killgrimage

starmanbrand wrote: »

Sounds like you're locked into the mind set that griddles are for breakfast only, my friend.

Certainly not sir! I want this thing to become a staple of my kitchen because it's just so freakin easy to use. Everything is done on it in like 5 minutes and it's so nice to just have a large hot surface to cook everything on. Your suggestions for quesadillas and sandwiches are much appreciated!

Crepes don't sound too hard anway, they sound like they're real similar to pancakes except they're thinner.