jean’s kitchen

Pumpkin Crepes

By JEAN DOHERTY/LE PATIO

We are now in November (where did the year go?) and our thoughts turn to Thanksgiving. This is a perfect addition to your traditional Thanksgiving feast:

Ingredients: (for approximately 40 crepes)

• 1 lb wheat flour
• 3 whole eggs beaten
• 1/2 pint of milk
• 1/2 pint of water
• 2 oz. butter ‘meunière’ (melted and cooked
• until slightly browned)
• 2 oz. caster sugar
• 1 pinch of table salt
• 14 oz. peeled pumpkin, cut into small cubes
• 1 pint milk
• 3 egg yolks
• 3 1/2oz. caster sugar
• 4 oz. sifted flour
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla sugar
• A few tablespoons of icing sugar

Directions:

• Heat up the butter.
• Prepare the pancake mixture: mix flour with eggs, then add sugar, salt, milk and water and stir well to get rid of any lumps (if you still have some, use a blender) and then add the butter ‘meunière’.
• Put the mixture aside and cover for at least 2 hours before using it.
• Bring the milk to the boil then add the pumpkin cubes to it and cook for about 4 minutes.
• Put the yolks into a salad bowl then add the sugar (the standard caster and the vanilla), stir well and then add the flour and continue stirring.
• Drain the pumpkin cubes (keep them aside) and add the milk in which the pumpkin has cooked into the salad bowl; stir well and transfer the lot to the saucepan on the stove.
• Stir well with a whisk for about a minute starting at the boiling point.
• Take the saucepan off the stove, add the pumpkin cubes and blend in an electric blender.
• Pour the mixture into a dish and sprinkle some icing sugar on it in order to avoid having a crust when it cools down.
• Cook the pancakes as usual; 10 minutes before serving them, pour, on half of each pancake 1 tablespoon of pumpkin cream, fold the pancakes in 2, put them on a buttered oven tin, spread some icing sugar on them and put them into the oven (heated at 320°F) for 3 to 4 minutes.
• Serve the pancakes on a plate, with, for instance, a custard blended with a little apricot jam and some crushed hazelnuts.
• Don’t tell your guests about the ingredients you have used: they will imagine mango, papaya, apricot — only tell the truth after they told you it was to die for! A guaranteed success