Memere's Morning Crepes (page 25)

I can finally get started with Mam Papaul's Country Creole Basket. As I've already said, the cookbook was written & published by my mom. I realized that I have to have written permission to reproduce any of her recipes. I had told her of my intention to blog about it but I don't think that she realized her recipes would be all over the internet. Anyway, I reached a deal to link to her site in exchange for reproducing the recipes. If you are interested in buying the cookbook, it is only $6.50 and can be purchased via Mam Papaul's website . It was really no big deal but I wanted to make sure that I cover myself since she has 3 lawyers in the family to give her advice.

We'll start with my favorite, Memere's Morning Crepes. I have made these several times since we moved to New Orleans. Our neighbor said that he had not eaten crepes like these since he was a kid.

Recipe:

2 eggs
2 cups milk
2 Tbsp melted butter
1/2 tsp. salt
1-1/2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. baking powder
oil for skillet

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder and salt together. Beat together eggs, milk and butter in the blender. Add flour mixture and blend well. Oil & heat skillet.

Here my technique is different from mom's. Recently, my sister gave me a crepe maker (see picture) and it is really efficient and helps to spread the batter thinly over the surface. So, I pour the batter in the dish for the crepe maker, dip the crepe-making apparatus in the batter and wait. After about 10-15 seconds, you can use a spatula to pull the crepes edges away from the sides. The timing depends on how you like them. Eat them with butter, syrup, lemon curd, jam or cane syrup (like mom's way).

Tart Tatin - not mom's

My dear friend, Mary, & I attended a cooking school a few years back and had a great time learning lots of new recipes! Jim complained that I always go to these cooking classes but never make the recipes again, so he never gets to see (or taste) the fruits of my small cooking education. So, I decided that I needed to pick a few favorites and share them with Jim, plus I had some apples and rosemary that I needed to use.

According to whatscookingamerica.net, the origin of tart tatin begins with the l'Hotel Tatin (in the a town called Lamotte-Beuvron in the Loire Valley of France - see map) by two unmarried sisters who owned and ran the hotel. They cooked for the guest as well. Their specialty was an apple tart. It sounds as if the tart tatin, an upside-down apple tart was actually an accident made by one of the sisters in a hurried tourist season.


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This rosemary brown sugar version of the tart was a hit with Mary and me, not so much with the husband. He said that there was too much rosemary in it, but it didn't stop him from eating it with vanilla ice cream!

Recipe:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 tsp minced fresh rosemary
1/4 tsp salt
10 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
2 egg yolks
3 Tbsp cold water

Place flour, sugar, rosemary and salt in food processor fitted with a metal blade. Process to combine. Add butter & pulse until coarse meal consistency (work quickly to keep butter cold). Whisk egg yolks & water in a small bowl to thoroughly combine. Add all at once to food processor & pulse several times to bring dough together.

Remove dough from processor; place on a large piece of plastic wrap and refrigerate for 30 min.

Filling:
4 Granny Smith apples
1 tsp fresh minced rosemary (you may want to use a little bit less, depending on your taste)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 Tbsp water
3 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
finely minced zest of one orange

Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit.
Peel apples, cut in half & remove core and stem. Slice each in half and cut into think slices.

Place apple slices in a mixing bowl and toss with rosemary and zest. Combine sugar & water in a heavy saute pan (with an oven-safe handle). Place pan over med-high heat. Do not stir sugar. Cook until sugar is a golden brown. Remove from heat & add butter. Whisk to incorporate butter.

Overlap the apple slices in a circular pattern in the pan. Fill the entire bottom portion of the pan.

Flour dough lightly and place it between 2 sheets of waxed paper. Roll dough out into a circle a little bigger than your pan. Place dough in pan and trim edges, but make sure that it covers the apples completely.

Place pan in the oven and bake for 20-25 min. Remove from the oven when golden brown and let it rest for a couple minutes. Invert onto a serving platter (watch out! - this can be a messy & scorching hot process). Serve with ice cream.

Goals

I've tried this blog thing before now. I have decided that it did not work out because I didn't have a goal. I've read food blogs where the blogger makes food of a certain cuisine, comes up with new and exciting recipes or cooks everything in a cookbook. I think that for me it will have to be food & family related. After all, I moved here to get closer to my roots. So, I am planning to make all of the recipes in my mom's cookbook, Mam Papaul's Country Creole Basket. Mam Papaul was my great-grandmother, whose name is also the brand for my family's line of dinner and cake mixes. My mom wrote the cookbook three years before I came into the world. I think that this mission will help me learn more about my family's history & maybe the readers will enjoy it, too. I hope so. I cannot promise that I will stick with this theme all of the time, but it's a start!