Monthly Archives: February 2012

Crepes au Citron

20 Monday Feb 2012

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I woke up this morning in a bit of a panic “aah, i haven’t done a pancake post and it’s pancake day tomorrow!” Now i’m sure that a lot of you out there are thinking, “er, calm down, it’s just pancake day and also, you’re a bit of a weirdo”. This may be very true, but i’m a serious fan of pancake day, you can have thick ones, thin ones, ricotta ones, buckwheat ones, souffle ones- the list goes on and on. You can make them sweet or savoury and put pretty much anything in them or on them that you can think of and it’ll probably be delicious. Given that i have to run out the door in a couple of hours to a two hour salsa class (i am going to be such a pro in a few weeks, just you wait and see) i don’t have much time to do anything too elaborate. Also i’m guessing that most of you don’t want to spend hours making something anyway, you just want to consume as many pancakes as possible on the one day a year that it’s not seen as weird. With that in mind, i thought i’d share one of my favourite recipes, it’s a French classic and a twist on the good old lemon and sugar. If you wanted to make savoury crepes/pancakes then simply leave out the 10g of sugar in the batter and you’re good to go. Happy pancaking everyone!

Crepes au Citron- makes enough for 4 people

  • 125g plain flour
  • 1 large egg, beaten
  • pinch of salt
  • 10g caster sugar (for sweet ones only)
  • 300ml whole milk
  • 20g butter, melted to nut brown
  • 60-100g caster sugar
  • 2 lemons
  • 50ml water

First of all, get your batter on the go as you need to let it rest for a while. Sift the flour, sugar and salt into a bowl (and actually sift it, no one likes a lumpy crepe).

Make a well in the centre and add the beaten egg.

Start to whisk and then gradually add the milk until you have a smooth batter.

Melt the butter and cook it until its brown an smells nutty-not black and smells burnt.

Add to the batter. Cling film the bowl or pour into tupperware and let it rest in the fridge for 20-30 minutes, this will help ensure a nice smooth batter.

In a saucepan, put the sugar, the juice of one lemon and 50ml of water and bring to the boil. I’ve given quite a variable amount of sugar as it’s completely dependent on how sweet you like things, i love really tart lemony things so i only use 60g but you’ll probably want more so just keep adding sugar and tasting until it’s sweet enough for you.

While the syrup is heating, supreme the other lemon. To do this, you cut off the top and the bottom of the lemon and then cut off the skin around the outside, making sure to remove all the white.

Next, cut between the membrane of each segment so that you end up with all the segments devoid of anything around them.

Once the syrup has come to the boil, take it off the heat and a the lemon segments.

Next up, make your crepes, wipe a little flavourless oil around your pan, i like to do small ones as i think they’re cuter but do whatever size you like. Bring your pan up to a medium heat and add just enough batter to cover the bottom of the pan. Cook one side, then flip. You only want them lightly coloured, don’t let them get too brown.

You want 3 of these little crepes per person. Cook them one by one and then stack them up between baking paper until you need them.

Once you’ve cooked them all, fold each crepe into 4 and warm up the syrup.

Warm them through in the syrup

Now all that’s left to do is serve them up, making sure to get some syrup and a few of the lemon segments.

 

Spicy Black Bean Soup with Chorizo, Feta and Spring Onion

19 Sunday Feb 2012

Posted by in beans, black beans, chilli, feta, soup

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I got a message the other day. It said “I’d like to make black bean soup, how please?”. And it got me thinking, there are many recipes out there for black bean soup and many restaurants selling it, any yet, I’m not sure I’ve ever found a truly great one. Don’t get me wrong, there have been lots of good ones, but none that really blew my mind, they’ve always been lacking that certain something, that oomph. I also often find most of these kind of soups more like a puree which wasn’t what i was after here, i wanted something a little thinner. I wanted something spiced as well as spicy and deeply flavourful, and by golly, i think i’ve got it. I was thinking about what goes into making a good soup and, for me, more often than not, it’s what you put on it as much as what you put in it. Now, honestly I’m a pretty big fan of this soup on its own but the toppings just make it so much better.

It’s also a goodie for a quick mid-week dinner as it’s super quick, cheap and it’s even healthy to boot, woop, jackpot. It’s also very easy to make it vegetarian, simply swap the chicken stock for veg stock and leave off the chorizo.

I’m a little achey today given that yesterday, after months and months of talking about it, my friend and i finally went and did a salsa dance workshop. Having had a truly hilarious day, when we got back we were exhausted and starving and a hot bowl of this was just the ticket- well, that, a few glasses of prosecco and the bodyguard. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did. I feel that both this soup and the salsa-ing may be cropping up a lot in the near future….

Spicy Black Bean Soup

  • 1 medium onion
  • 1 medium carrot
  • 1 stick of celery
  • 2 big fat garlic cloves
  • 2 cans of black beans, rinsed (or 800g cooked black beans)
  • 1.5 tsp ground cumin
  • 3tsp hot chilli powder
  • 1 tsp ground coriander
  • 750ml chicken stock
Toppings
  • Little cubes of chorizo (if you’re feeling a tad lazy, waitrose do packs of them)
  • Sliced spring onion
  • Crumbled feta cheese

Finely chop the carrot, celery, onion and garlic and rinse the beans.

Pop some oil in a pan (i use rapeseed) and fry off the onions, carrot and celery over a low heat for a few minutes before adding the garlic. Sweat everything down until soft but not coloured.

Add the spices and the beans and stir so that everything is well mixed and coated in the spices.

Then add the chicken stock, i used 2 organic chicken stock cubes dissolved in 750ml of water but if you have fresh stock to hand, obviously use that.

Simmer until the beans are soft, about 10 minutes. Then allow to cool a bit before blending with a stick blender until it’s about 3/4 blended. You want it mostly smooth but still with a few chunks for texture.

Don’t be impatient, like me, and blend it whilst it’s still roasting hot or your stick blender won’t be very happy. Trust me, i speak from experience…

Poor little thing, i don’t think it’ll ever be quite the same.

Once the soup’s blended, return it too the heat and simmer until it reaches a consistency you like.

Fry some cubes of chorizo until golden and crisp, crumble up some feta and slice some spring onions and pile on top of your soup. Don’t scrimp on the toppings as they make an already delicious soup sooooo much better.