Homemade Belgian Waffle

Not sure why it took me so long to invest in a waffle maker, when I love eating waffles?! Now that I finally bought one and that the first recipe came out exactly how I like it. It will definitely be used many Sundays ahead.
Homemade Belgian Waffles
adapted from casa de lindquist
serves : about 6 x 10x12cm waffles
Ingredients:
1 large egg or 2 medium-sized eggs, room temp.
1 Tbsp sugar
1 cup all-purpose flour
about 207ml milk, room temp.
57gm butter, melted
2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
Method:
1) Lightly grease waffle maker then switch it on to pre-heat.
2) Mix together flour, baking powder and salt. set aside.
3) In another bowl, whisk egg(s) and sugar until light and fluffy.
4) Pour in milk and melted butter, mix well. Finally add in the flour-mixture. Mix until lump-free. Don't over mix.
5) Spoon waffle batter onto pre-heated waffle maker. close it. and set timer to 5 minute.
6) Serve hot with any sweet or savoury condiments.

Basic crepes

wow, these were really light (much lighter than the Hungarian type) and crispy on the edges. Like it a lot... definitely a keeper !
Stumbled upon recipe here

Basic Crepe

Ingredients

1/3 cup plain flour
2 free range eggs
¾ cup whole milk
pinch salt
1 Tbsp vegetable oil or melted butter (but in cold weather, these little globules will set hard and not do their job well)
1 tsp vanilla extract
soft butter to grease pan

Method

1. Pop non-stick crepe/frypan on low heat to begin warming.
2. In a medium mixing bowl, combine flour, eggs, a quarter of cup of milk, salt, melted butter or oil and whisk till silky smooth. Add another half a cup of milk and whisk till nicely incorporated. The mixture should be quite watery. If you have the correct consistency, the batter will split into droplets when poured from the ladle in a slow stream. If it forms a smooth band of liquid as it is poured from the ladle, your crepes will end up too thick.
3. Heat a 20 to 23 centimeters non-stick frypan to medium. To test, ladle a droplet of batter into the pan. If it sizzles and instantly bubbly, it’s probably a bit too hot. Just grab the pan and making sure no one is around you, madly wave it around to cool it down a tad. Return to stove, and with some paper towel smear some butter onto the entire surface of pan. Start by ladling just enough (quarter cup should be perfect) of the batter into the pan to roll and cover the surface. You have to work quickly as it should begin to cook instantly. When the crepe is perfect, it will start to crisp up on the edges. At this point lift up an edge with a butter knife and with both hands, carefully pick up the crepe to swiftly flip it over. This only has to cook for literally a second on the other side and then you can flip it onto a plate. Repeat till all mixture is cooked. You should end up with crepes that are just under two millimetres thick; any thicker and you will lose that magic silkiness, which is what a good crepe is all about. This will mean that you are either pouring too much mixture into the pan and letting the excess settle instead of pouring it out, or that your batter needs thinning with more milk.

Hungarian crepe { Palacsinta }

Hungarian crepe is not as thin as the French ones; but it is still very light. I love them with ground walnuts, cinnamon and sweetened with sugar. My husband prefers them with custard and jam but you can fill them with any sweet/savoury combo. It will work .

Hungarian Crepe {Palacsinta}
serves : 12 crepes
Ingredients
125gm plain flour
2 eggs
1 sachet vanilla sugar
1 pinch of salt
250ml milk, cold
40gm butter, melted
vegetable oil, for greasing
Preparation
1) In a bowl, place flour, eggs, vanilla sugar and salt. Add in the milk gradually, mix until you get a smooth batter. Finally add in the melted butter (not hot) and mix well. Let it rest in the fridge for minimum of 30 minutes.
2) Once batter has rested, heat round non-stick frying pan with a little oil. Take a ladle and spoon approx a ladle of batter onto frying pan. Adjust the quantity of batter according to the size of frying pan. When the edge of the crepe starts to crisp, flip over and let it heat for few seconds and the crepe is ready. Repeat process until you finish the batter.

Pancake Hortobágy style { Hortobágyi palacsinta }

The other day I taste for the first time Hortobágyi palacsinta. It was melt in the mouth pancake and filling, drizzled with velvety sauce. The next day I've decided to recreate it in my own kitchen. I've got to say, it wasn't far from what I remember!
Hortobágyi pancake
serves 4 pax
Video tutorial by Miele cooking school http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KO8_maUoWEc
Crepe/ Pancake via No salty
Ingredients
Filling (Chicken paprikash/stew)
Vegetable oil, for cooking
5 pcs of chicken thigh meat, bone-in, cleaned
1 onion, minced
1 clove garlic, minced
4-5 tsp smoked paprika, to taste
1 tomato, diced
1 Hungarian wax pepper
salt, to taste
water, just enough to cover meat
To thicken
100ml sour cream, room temeprature
1 Tbsp flour

Crepe/pancakes
2 large eggs, room temerature
125gm flour
a pinch of salt
250ml cold milk, room temperature
40g butter, melted
oil for cooking
Method

For stew :-
1)  Heat oil in sauce pan, sauté onion and garlic until translucent. Add in diced tomato, diced paprika and smoked paprika. Stir it a bit and put in the chicken thigh meat and salt to taste. Pour in enough water to cover meat, not too much as the meat will release some juices as well. Put on the cover and cook for 30 mins.
2) Once chicken is fully cooked and tomatoes and paprika have cooked down. Remove chicken thigh meat from the sauce, and by using a strainer remove the bits and pieces of onions,tomatoes etc from the sauce. Put the sauce back on the heat. We need to thicken the sauce by mixing together soul cream and flour, mix well before pouring into the chicken stew sauce. Bring it to boil for few minutes. Once thicken the sauce is ready.
For crepe/pancakes
1) In mixing bowl, crack in the eggs, mix in the salt. Then gradually add in flour and milk , alternately until the mixture is well combine, no lumps. Finally pour in the melted butter. Let the batter rest in fridge for at least 30 mins.
2) Take out batter from fridge after 30 mins. Mix it a little. Heat a flat pan over medium heat with some oil. Brush away excess oil. Use a ladle, pour the pancake batter onto the hot pan and swirl it around the pan to get a thin and even batter around the pan. Cook the pancake until just colour, not too much as the pancake should be soft with just a little bite to it. Cook until the batter is finish.
Assembling :-
1) Warm up the chicken meat and sauce by using microwave or stove.
Place chicken pieces onto pancake. Not too much. Wrap it. up and pour sauce over the pan cake, and serve immediately!

My version of Mille Crepe

The long list of ingredients required for mille crepe puts me off from trying out the recipe. It is far too complicated for my attention span :p Perhaps some other time...
So, the next best solution for me was to use the Hungarian crepe (palacsinta) recipe by June meyer instead and by stacking up layers of palacsinta to imitate the mille crepe look ;)

Pancakes (Palacsinta)
Serves 4 to 6.

Ingredients
4 whole eggs
2 cups milk
2 tsp. sugar
2 cups sifted flour
Butter

1) Mix flour, salt and sugar.Combine well beaten eggs and milk.Add egg and milk gradually to flour mixture, beating to a thin smooth batter.Let batter sit for 1/2 hour. This gets rid of the raw flour taste.

2) Spoon 3 Tbls. on hot buttered skillet. Will be very thin. Tilt skillet quickly in a circular motion to distribute batter over skillet. Brown lightly on both sides.Continue this until batter is used up.

To make Chocolate syrup1 bar of dark chcolate

1) Break chocolate into pieces and melt it using double boiler.

Assembling the cake

Almond flakes or grated walnut and powdered sugar for sprinkling

1) spread melted chocolate lightly on every crepe, meanwhile stacking it up til the desired height.
2) Finish off with more melted chocolate on top, sprinkle almond flakes all over.
3) When serving, sprinkle with some powdered sugar and a dollop of cream.

Asian Peanuts Pancake { Mi Jian Kueh }

Thanks food blogger Aunty Yochana for sharing this recipe. If you read the comments in her blog, you'd realise that many Malaysians/Singaporeans living abroad miss it ; something which used to be easily available at their neighbourhood morning market and never thought of making it at home!

As advised by Aunty yochana I've replaced the fruit salt with instant yeast since Eno (a kind of fruit salt) wasn't available here. And I've apportioned the recipe acording to 200gm of plain flour i.e. 2/5 of the original recipe which yield 5 pancakes.

Verdict :-
I couldn't stop munching !
Texture wise it is not very near to honeycomb surface that I'm familiar with, perhaps that is due to the substitution of Eno.
Anyway, I'll definately make this again :)