Crêpes

crêpe with sweetened cream, sliced bananas, and chocolate sauce

2 weeks ago I watched the Japanese movie Linda Linda Linda about a High School all-girls rock or J-pop band. The movie is about a tradition in Japanese schools' fall or holly festival where they have a number of food and souvenir booths and the highlight is the performance of several rock bands towards the end of the festival. The drummer of the group is working in a booth that sells crêpes, the most popular are the banana with chocolate sauce on a bed of sweetened whipped cream. It made me crave for the banana chocolate combo which I used to have in Hong Kong in one of the Japanese coffee shops where the coffee machines look like they belong in a laboratory, see photo below. Those machines make really good coffee, btw. That was nearly 20 years ago when I developed a taste for anything Japanese. Our apartment was a few minutes from the Causeway Bay area where there were (I'm not sure if they are still there) 4 Japanese department stores: Sogo, Matsuzakaya, Mitsukoshi, and Daimaru, and several coffee shops. Daimaru was the one I went to regularly because of their bake shop which is located at the entryway on the ground floor. When I was done with the grocery and household shopping (my first santuko knife which I still use, a pair of leather gloves which I still use, and a 3-fold umbrella that, you guessed it, I still use after almost 20 years!), I stopped by the bakeshop watching and waiting for the still warm milk loaves being sliced by a machine and for the buns (kashi-pan) filled with chocolate or vanilla cream and sweet azuki bean paste. In my honest opinion the Japanese bakeries make the creamiest, softest, most delicious breads and buns. I miss those breads, but at least I had my fill of choco-banana crêpes today. Mmmmm.

Photo: Peter DaSilva for The New York Times

Crêpes
7/8 cup flour
¼ cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 eggs
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons cognac
2 tablespoons melted butter
1½ cups milk

• Sift flour, sugar, and salt into a bowl. Add eggs, one at a time and mix until free of lumps. Mix in lemon zest, cognac, and melted butter. Slowly add milk and mix until batter is consistency of thin cream. Let it stand an hour or two before making crêpes. Heat a crêpe pan or a 10-inch non-stick skillet and rub with a little butter. Pour some batter on the pan and tilting about to let it run over the bottom in a fairly thin layer. When lightly browned at the bottom, turn carefully and brown on the other side. As each crêpe is cooked, remove to a hot platter and keep warm. Re-butter pan as needed.

Filling suggestions:
- sweetened whipped heavy cream, sliced bananas, chocolate sauce
- sweetened cream (or pastry cream), sliced strawberries and Nutella