Food Friday: Crêpes with Bucayo

crêpes filled with bucayo 

I love crêpes, both sweet and savory. This time I wanted something sweet and Filipino. I filled them with bucayo, rolled them spring roll style, and drizzled with coconut sauce. They're sweet and coconut-y...perfect with ripe mangoes.

Recipes:

Crêpes

Bucayo

Coconut Sauce

Zucchini Blossoms Crêpes

savory crêpes filled with zucchini blossoms, baby vegetables, and cheese

fiori di zucca (zucchini blossoms)

I grew up eating plenty of vegetables and one of my favorites was steamed squash blossoms. We never had them stuffed nor deep-fried; we cooked them by putting on top of freshly cooked rice and left to wilt and soften for a few minutes. They were simply served with sea salt and lemon juice (calamansi).

I planted a few seeds of fiori di zucca bought from an online seed company, the catalog promises the plants will yield mostly flowers and few tiny/baby fruits. Indeed the plants have lots and lots of bright orange blossoms and one or two tender tasty sweet fruits. I chopped the fruits and sauteed them with the blossoms, shallots, and baby Swiss chards and used it to fill savory crêpes for a light but delicious and satisfying summer lunch dish. I love the Parmesan cheese crust and the crispy edges but tender on the inside pancakes. The mild flavors of the vegetables and Provolone go perfectly well with the small amount of Parmesan cheese.

Fiori di Zucca Crêpes
crêpes
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 egg
½ teaspoon sea or kosher salt
1¼ cups water
¼ cup light olive oil

• Blend ingredients in a blender and let rest on the kitchen counter or refrigerator for 1 hour.
• Heat a nonstick skillet over medium-low heat; brush lightly with light olive oil. Stir batter and pour about 2½ tablespoons, swirling to coat the skillet evenly. Cook until edges come off the skillet, then flip and cook for another 30 seconds. Remove to a plate and continue with the rest of the batter.

filling for 8 crêpes
20 pieces zucchini blossoms
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons finely minced shallots
1 cup coarsely chopped baby zucchini
1 cup chopped baby Swiss chard, optional
½ teaspoon sea salt or to taste
½ cup grated Parmesan cheese, divided
½ cup grated Provolone cheese

• Reserve 4 blossoms cut in half lengthwise for garnish; cut remaining blossoms into 4 pieces; set aside. Heat butter in a skillet and saute shallots until soft, about 2 minutes. Add baby zucchini and saute for 2 minutes; add blossoms and Swiss chard, if using, and saute for 2 minutes. Turn heat off and mix in ¼ cup Parmesan cheese.
• Fill crêpes: Place 2 tablespoons of grated Provolone on one half of each crepe, top with 2 tablespoons of sauteed vegetables, fold over in half and fold one more time. Repeat with the rest of ingredients. Place filled crêpes on an oven-proof dish, slightly overlapping. Sprinkle top of each with half a tablespoon of Parmesan cheese and press one blossom half on top. Place under the broiler until Parmesan is golden brown and edges of crêpes are crispy.

Pandan Crêpe Layer Cake

I found a year-old [home canned] jar of mangoes in syrup in my pantry. They aren't spoiled and still very good so I sliced them really thin to fill the pandan crêpes I had been planning to make. I stacked the crêpes and mango and cream filling instead of fill/roll individually. It is not such a brilliant idea because they went slipping and sliding when I cut the "cake" into slices. It's okay, though, because it is so good and with chocolate sauce is extra yummy. I just pushed them back together to make it look tidy. I'll make a proper pandan chiffon layer cake with similar filling next time.

Pandan Crêpe Layer Cake
crêpes
1 cup sifted all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
½ cup pandan water (blend 6 pandan leaves with ½ cup water and strain)
2 eggs
¼ teaspoon sea salt
4 tablespoons light olive oil
3 drops green food dye gel
butter

filling
thin slices of ripe mangoes
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons condensed milk

• Mix crêpe ingredients except butter in a blender until smooth. Heat a 7-inch skillet, rub with butter and pour about a quarter cup of batter, rotating the pan quickly to spread evenly. Cook on medium-low heat until edges are dry, lift, and flip to cook the other side. Stack on a plate and let cool completely.
• Prepare the cream filling: Whip the heavy cream to soft peaks. Add condensed milk and whip for 30 seconds until blended.
• Fill individually with mangoes and cream, roll and place on a plate seam side down. Drizzle with chocolate sauce. Or, if you prefer the layered look: place one crêpe on a platter, arrange sliced mangoes on top, spread 2 tablespoons of cream and repeat with the rest of the crêpes and filling, and a crêpe on top. Cut into 6 slices. Drizzle with chocolate sauce.

all my favorites in one yummy dessert: pandan, mangoes, cream, condensed milk, chocolate

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