The other day Maestro lent me Julia Child's The French Chef DVDs, which sent me into yet another Julia Child tizzy. I love the woman, what can I say? If you've never watched these classics, episodes of her old TV show, you should. Not only is she an amazing cook who not only changed her viewpoint on life and food but also that of most of America, she is absolutely enchantingly adorable to watch; tripping over words, dropping things on the stovetop only to throw them back in to the pan (WHO is going to know??), adding tablespoon after unmeasured tablespoon of butter, cream, and cheese, and finishing with her beautifully awkward "Bon appetit," the show is as entertaining to watch as it is educational.
After watching the potato episode, Miss L and I decided we should try out her Crepes de pommes de terre recipe. It was relatively easy, sounded delicious, and we had most of the ingredients on hand. The pictures aren't gorgeous, but then again, neither are potatoes...As Julia says, they're "perfectly delicious"...
Read on for recipe and photos...
After watching the potato episode, Miss L and I decided we should try out her Crepes de pommes de terre recipe. It was relatively easy, sounded delicious, and we had most of the ingredients on hand. The pictures aren't gorgeous, but then again, neither are potatoes...As Julia says, they're "perfectly delicious"...
Read on for recipe and photos...
Ingredients (Note: We did a 2/3 recipe of the one in Mastering the Art of French Cooking, pp. 521 - 522)
6 oz. cream cheese (I used 1/3 less fat...Julia would not have been proud)
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1 egg
Salt & Pepper to taste
4 oz. grated Swiss cheese (1/2 cup)
4 - 5 medium potatoes, grated (Didn't have a box grater at the time so i chopped them very fine...this made the squeezing out the water part rather impossible...)
3 tbsp skim milk (Julia would not have been proud...where's the cream?!)
~1 tbsp butter
~1 tbsp oil (you will need more)
Directions
- Mash cream cheese with flour in a medium mixing bowl.
- Mix in egg and seasoning and beat until smooth.
- Stir in the swiss cheese.
- Peel the potatoes and rub them through the large holes of a grater (or ghetto chop them...).
- Taking a small handful at a time, place the grated bits in a dishcloth and squeeze out the extra water. (It's amazing watching her do this in the French Chef...there's at least 2 cups of water in the 1 1/4 pounds of potatoes she grates!)
- Stir the potatoes into the cheese mixture.
- Stir in the cream (or the skim milk...the shame...) by spoonful to make the mixture the consistency of creamy cole slaw.
- Heat oil and butter in a skillet over moderately high heat.
- Ladle three piles of batter in to form three little 3" wide (3/8"thick) crepes. (As you can see here we tried a large, skillet sized crepe and to "flip with conviction" as she attempts to do in the potato episode...it didn't go so well for her so I don't know why I expected it to go well for us...)
- Let them lightly brown and when you see bubbles appear on the surface (this takes about 3 minutes...more with a skillet sized crepe), then flip to brown on the other side.
- She suggests serving them with anything! Ham, poached eggs (I have an epic entry about failure on this one), cream, cheese, etc...Yummy!
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