Tonight’s dinner is brought to you by a recipe I saw in Fine Cooking Magazine. I didn’t make the recipe, but that’s beside the point.
Fine Cooking and Cooking Light are my two food magazine subscriptions. They both have some good ideas and are easy to switch up as my mood – or pantry – decrees. I’ve been looking at a crêpe recipe for a few weeks, now, and decided today was the day to do it – it just looked fun.
The recipe was for Shrimp Purses – a shrimp filling wrapped in a crêpe and tied with a chive. They looked pretty no-brainer. I even have chives growing in the garden.
I got to work and started making crespelle because I decided I was going to do a sausage and pepper and cheese filling – make them with an Italian flair. I’ve been making Lidia’s Crespelle recipe for a long time – it is no-brainer easy. Their recipe is for an hors d’oeuvre and I wanted to make it a bit heartier for dinner.
Alas… the crespelle is heavier than a light French Crêpe… they didn’t want to neatly gather into little pouches.
So I stuffed them and rolled them like a canneloni. I mean… what the heck… I was making them Italian, anyway. May as well just go for it.
I topped them off with the quick tomato pan sauce I was going to use as the base for my purses. Sauce on top, sauce on bottom. As long as there’s sauce, it doesn’t matter where it goes.
The tomato sauce was simply fresh tomatoes chopped up and tossed into a skillet with some olive oil, basil, and salt & pepper. As basic as basic can be.
The end result was it didn’t really matter what shape they were – they were really good. Even Nonna cleaned her plate – she’s always the wild card when we do something different. She may not have been as receptive to little purses on her plate although she usually is a good sport about at least trying things.
The filling was some fresh sausage cooked with onions, garlic, and peppers from the yard – along with a bit of fresh mozzarella.
And the crespelle…
Crespelle
- 4 large eggs
- 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 to 1 1/4 cup water
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
Place the flour in a large mixing bowl. Crack the eggs over the flour and whisk them in. Add salt and whisk in water until smooth.
Heat your pan until hot and brush with melted butter. Pour 1/4 cup batter into the pan and swirl to completely coat. Cook until pale golden and crespelle is dry on top. Place on plate and continue until all the batter has been used.
Fill with your favorite sweet or savory filling.
I do think that I still want to make the little purses at some point, so stay tuned.
Tomorrow I’m turning the kitchen over to Victor – he’s going to stuff some of our garden peppers!
Film at 11.