Saturday 1 April 2006

pheas·ant galette

When Lindy at Toast asked for delectable but thrifty dishes or Something Out of Nothing, I thought what could be more nothing (less?!) than the last bits, except for the bones themselves, of a roast bird. The first eating of a roast bird is a good roast dinner, the second some wonderful sandwiches, and the bones should always become a stock or soup. But if you can manage a third round of pickings you are being very thrifty indeed!

I love savoury stuffed pancakes, they are something that can generally be rustled up from what you have in the fridge and pantry - no special purchases are needed. A wee bit of meat can be padded out with vegetables, and if there are not enough vegetables, just have more pancake and sauce and less actual filling.

This recipe can include any type and amount of leftover meat, indeed none, whatever vegetable you might have and even the gravy (and the fat!) left over from the roast. The pancakes can be plain of course, but I really love the buckwheat version.

There are five easy stages :

1. The pancake batter.
2. The sauce.
3. The filling preparation.
4. The pancake frying.
5. The filling and reheating.

These are the perfect meal for a Tuesday night ; Sunday for the roast and Monday for the sandwiches.

This is how I make them for two people :

The pancake batter :
15g
of buckwheat flour
15g
of plain flour
pinch of salt
1 egg
1/2 cup of half milk and half water

Beat all the ingredients together and put in the fridge to rest for an hour.

The sauce :
1 tablespoon of plain flour
1 tablespoon of the fat from the top of the leftover gravy or butter
50mL gravy
50mL cream


Make a roux by melting the fat and stirring in the flour and cooking for 1 minute.
Slowly stir in the gravy, stirring well to keep it smooth and lump free. Then stir in the cream and season with salt and pepper if necessary.

The filling :
Some vegetables, e.g.
1 leek and 12 mushrooms or leftover roast vegetables.
Some left over meat.
If the vegetables are raw, sauté until starting to caramelise.
Mix the meat and vegetables into the sauce.

The pancake frying :
Fry the pancakes, there will be four, in a lightly greased pan.

The filling and reheating :
Roll or fold the filling up in the pancakes then reheat in a
200°c oven.

This pheasant version is obviously a bit extravagant, but also thrifty because you are using every last morsel of meat. This works just as well with regular leftover roast chicken.

I was going to call this post pheasant crêpe but La tartine gourmande put me right - pheasant galette it is!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This looks lovely. Thanks for participating.

Anonymous said...

Ahah, yes indeed Emma, une galette pas une crêpe! ;-) Looks lovely!