pancakes | The Rambling Epicure

What to Eat in France: Matafans

Published by Jonell Galloway + Monday, August 17, 2015 Permalink 0

What to Eat in France: Matafans, or Thick Pancakes from the Franche-Comté

Matafans are a specialty of the rugged region of Franche-Comté in eastern France; the word is Franco-Provençal. They are sometimes called mata fame, meaning in Spanish “to kill hunger.” It’s not surprising that the word originally comes from Spanish, since they controlled this region in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

Matafans are also found in the Savoy and Lyon under the francisized name matefaim.

They are fairly ancient, and Rabelais mentioned them in his third book in 1546.

Matafans were originally eaten by peasants for breakfast. Today, they are often eaten as a starter, accompanied by a green salad.

They are essentially very thick pancakes, and in the old days were made with leftover mashed potatoes, but can also be made with apples and eaten as a dessert. Lucy Vanel gives a recipe for the historical potato recipe on her website. Today, most people make them from wheat flour.

They are eaten at Candlemas, washed down with Génépi, an absinthe liqueur. The dessert version is accompanied by a sparkling rosé or a fortified wine.

What to Eat in France: Buckwheat Crêpes

Published by Jonell Galloway + Sunday, August 2, 2015 Permalink 0

What to Eat in France: Galettes de Blé Noir, or Breton-style Buckwheat Pancakes

The buckwheat crêpes of Brittany are unique in the context of French cuisine. They go by many names: galettes de sarrasin, crêpe bretonne, galette de blé noir.

Crusaders brought back buckwheat from Asia in the twelfth century, but it proved to be hard to grow until they took it to Brittany, where there is always plenty of rain, yet the climate is not harsh and the soil is acidic: all the right conditions for growing blé noir, meaning literally “black wheat,” even though it’s not technically of the wheat family.

It was Anne of Brittany who had it planted it all over Brittany and made it part of the Breton diet at the beginning of the fifteenth century. It grows fast and is ready to eat in 100 days, so it helped feed Bretons for centuries, and is often referred to as “poor people’s wheat,” since wheat was only affordable for the rich in those days. It was probably used for gruel or very thick griddle cakes at the beginning.

It still took centuries before the buckwheat pancake as we know it to became popular. The original recipe, which dates from some one thousand years ago, contained only buckwheat, salt and water and was much thicker than the crêpes we know today, which also contain milk, eggs and regular wheat flour, giving a thinner crêpe.

On February 2, Catholics celebrate Candlemas by eating buckwheat crêpes together. For farmers, this date concurs with the end of winter and the beginning of the new farming year, so superstitious farmers keep the candles from this celebration lit to protect their future harvests.

Traditionally, buckwheat galettes are reserved for savory dishes, and are not used for dessert. The Bretons drink apple cider with them.

Down Under: Cultured butter from South Australia’s Woodside Cheese Wrights

Published by Amanda McInerney + Tuesday, July 10, 2012 Permalink 0

by Amanda McInerney

There’s butter, and then there’s butter

Whenever anyone asks me what were the high points of our recent trip to Europe I always answer with two simple words: the food. We happily indulged ourselves whenever possible, knowing we would be walking it all off within days, and I was pleased to note that I came home carrying no extra baggage except for my shopping.

I was having a conversation about our foodie finds with my friend Kris Lloyd, the cheese-making talent behind South Australia’s multi-award winning Woodside Cheese Wrights, not long after we got back and was waxing lyrical about some butter made from clotted cream (cultured butter) which we had bought on our last day in London. It was part of a significant haul that we took home from London’s Borough Markets for a final feeding frenzy before we flew home and had made quite an impression. Kris commented that she had recently been “playing around” (her words) with cultured butter, including one which she had washed in whiskey. With the taste of the delicious, golden London lipids still lingering, to say I was eager to try Kris’ efforts would be something of an understatement.

Cultured butter is something of a recent discovery for many Australians, but has been in use for hundreds of years in Europe. The butter we are used to is what Europeans refer to as “sweet cream butter” — delicious, but lacking the depth of flavour of cultured butter. Cultured butter is made in exactly the same way as ordinary butter, but a live culture is added to the cream which is allowed to ripen for some time before being churned, salted (or not) and rinsed. Kris adds the culture to her cream 24 hours before she uses it to make butter, giving the cream time to “clot”. Cultured butter has a richer, deeper flavour, which some find somewhat tangy, and also comes with a little probiotic boost from the addition of the live culture.

Kris gave me three different batches to play around with — an almost unsalted butter, salted butter and the remarkable whiskey-washed version — and I’ve had a very happy day or two getting to know them. They are all truly delicious and definitely add an extra facet to the dishes I used them in: a Mushroom and Almond Bruschetta with Chèvre and Vanilla-Poached Oranges with Pikelets. I kept these recipes fairly simple in order to let the ingredients do the talking. There’s no point in using outstanding produce and then smothering it with other flavours and fancy techniques; good food doesn’t need to be tricky. The mushrooms I used came from Marco the Mushroom Man in the Adelaide Central Market and the sublime oranges were in our CSA box from Jupiter Creek Farm, all fresh, local and fabulous. I couldn’t help adding some wonderful Beerenberg Caramelised Onions to the mushroom dish. They finished it off perfectly.

Recipe

Mushroom and Almond Bruschetta with Chèvre

Prep time: 5 mins
Cooking time: 10 mins
Total time: 15 mins
Serves: 2
This made a good lunch for 2, but would also make an entrée for 4.

Click here for metric-Imperial conversions.

Ingredients

500 gms Portobello mushrooms, sliced
30 gms toasted almonds, ground as fine as your food processor will allow
100 gms Woodside Cheesewright chèvre
80 gms cultured butter
1 tbsp chopped thyme
1 good pinch of salt
Beerenberg Caramelised Onions or ones you make yourself
2 large slices sourdough bread

Instructions

Melt the butter in moderately hot pan, add mushrooms and salt. Cook on low heat.
When mushrooms begin to soften, add the ground nuts and the thyme. Continue cooking until mushrooms are cooked to taste.
Slice bread and toast. (At this point you may/may not choose to butter it with more of the cultured butter. I’ll leave you to guess what I did.)
Pile the cooked mushrooms on the toasts, sprinkle each with a teaspoon or two of the caramelised onions, then crumble the chèvre over the top. Serve.

The whiskey-washed butter was used in an even simpler dish of pikelets (small bite-sized pancakes) with vanilla-poached oranges, but the combination was absolutely stunning and much appreciated by the guests to whom I served it yesterday for afternoon tea. My good friend Meg is very partial to a wee dram or two of whiskey and her eyes glazed over just a little while eating these.

I’m sure everyone can work out how to make basic pikelets.

As for the vanilla-poached oranges: the oranges were simply peeled, making sure all of the pith was removed, sliced about 10mm thick and gently poached for ten minutes in a syrup made of 1 1/2 cups of white sugar, 1/2 cup of water and one vanilla bean, split open and scraped – hardly a recipe at all! I cooled them slightly in the syrup, buttered the hot pikelets with the whiskey-washed butter and layered the oranges and pikelets, topping with a dab of the precious butter. Eat, then swoon.

Tasting Australia: The Internationally Recognised Aussie Food Fest

One American’s Synopsis of Chinese Food

Published by Jonell Galloway + Friday, May 27, 2011 Permalink 0

by Gayle Black

In China, there are at least seven styles of cuisine. They vary according to region. While living in Jiangsu Province in the central eastern part of the country, I was mainly exposed to one, broadly defined as “spicy.” Many of the dishes were spicy, but not extremely so for my American tongue. In northern China, the preference tends to be for noodles and dumplings, rather than rice. The bread available is very good, even when produced on a mass scale. The Chinese are excellent bakers.

In Xuzhou, where I lived for half a year, the mutton is fresh and readily available. They slice it in an artful way and bring it to the table to be enjoyed for visual beauty as well as taste. A popular form of dining is called “hot pot.” Restaurants provide two pots of boiling water, and diners are able to cook various meats and vegetables at the table. Wonderful sauces for dipping complete the experience.

I especially enjoyed the fresh fruit available in China. The mandarin oranges were sold with stems and leaves, which kept them particularly flavorful. There were also small mangoes, which had a better texture and more delicate flavor than the larger ones most of us are familiar with. Fruit markets were common on many streets. There were also many flavorful dishes sold by street vendors. Of course the buyer had to be careful. I bought a good pancake with vegetable filling. I would have been hesitant to buy a meat-filled one.

In order to discover the many varieties of Chinese cooking, a traveler short on time would do best to visit Shanghai. It is a beautiful, cosmopolitan city where all manner of Chinese food and every other type of Chinese creation can be enjoyed.