Need help with a corn crepe recipe from Symon/Ruhlman
Hi everyone,
There's not much to do on Easter for a Jewish girl like me, so I've been in the kitchen all day. On second thought, that's not much different from what I do every other Sunday...
So I have a potluck dinner party tomorrow night, and I'd planned on bringing the Corn Crepes with BBQ Sauce and Sour Cream recipe that Michael Ruhlman includes in "The Soul of a Chef." The recipe is Michael Symon's, and hails from Lola. Anyway, the corn crepes are really giving me problems. I followed the recipe exactly, but my first crepe spread out thick onto the pan and cooked to a custardy, eggy interior. I added a little more milk to the batter to thin it out. The next one was thinner, but the crepe remained mushy even after it was cooked through and the exterior browned. The flavor was great, but the structure totally killed it. This bad boy is supposed to hold duck confit, BBQ sauce, and sour cream, but it crumbled in my fingers.
At this point, I stepped away from the stove. However, I saved the rest of the batter, and was thinking about maybe adding some flour. However, I realized that I've never heard anything about this dish outside of the Ruhlman book, and don't know if the crepes are maybe supposed to be on the softer side. So my question is, has anyone else made this recipe, and if so, do you have any pointers or tips?
Thanks a lot, and happy Easter to all of those who celebrate it!
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5 Comments:
I've made it, we had troubles with the crepes sticking to the pan - the ones we were able to get out in one piece were pretty fragile - if you figure it out let me know!
palmsey at 10:39PM on 04/12/09
I've made these several times and never had a problem. My only guess is that your flour is very airy and light so that a half cup isn't enough. Do you have a scale? Try weighing out 2 ounces of flour.
Sticking is a matter of using enough oil and heating your pan properly. Or use a non-stick pan.
I do remember one saturday afternoon at lola when Frank Rogers couldn't make his crepe batter work and symon had to do it for him. And this was a guy who'd been making them every day for years. So there is some mystery involved. But personally, I think it has to do more with the weight of flour.
ruhlman at 8:21AM on 04/13/09
Ok look for a recipe online for Cachapas. It is a venezuelan corn pancake. They are very sturdy and extremely pliable and allows you to put meat or basically whatever else you want and it is Pesach compliant
nelson5757 at 2:31PM on 04/13/09
Thanks for the advice. It's comforting to know that Frank couldn't always make it work! I'm going to tackle them again and hope for the best.
unpocojmoney at 3:56PM on 04/14/09
When I was cutting my teeth on crepes, the biggest problem I had was keeping the pan too hot. I used the recipe from The French Laundry Cookbook and there was some sage advice in there: "if you hear it sizzle in the pan, your heat is too high". Once I got that through my head, it was smooth sailing -- good luck!
rcolantuoni at 1:55PM on 05/06/09