Take me to the Mardi Gras

I was watching Gordon Ramsay in Kitchen Nightmares the other night. OMG aren't there some hopeless unimaginative chefs out there! In the midst of the mayhem of an unsuccessful attempt to bring one chef into the 21st century, a restaurant's maitre d' impressed Ramsay as he demonstrated his skill with the flambe pan and produced a beautiful dish of crepes Suzette.

This is one retro dessert I've never abandoned myself. I've made it for numerous dinner parties and in spite of making double quantities of crepes most times, I've never had any leftovers.

As February 5 is Pancake Day, Shrove Tuesday - also known as Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday - the day preceding the start of Lenten fasting, I thought I would share my recipe.

This classical French dessert - crepes with an orange liqueur sauce - is splendid for a special occasion and, with a little planning, can be stress-free.

I always makes the crepes ahead. In fact crepes can be frozen so if you have some free time and are feeling creative, making a batch of crepes at your leisure can be very worthwhile.

If you plan to freeze crepes, separate each one with a square of freezer film and you can then easily remove just the number you require.

First up I will tell you the classic way of making and assembling crepes, then give the stress-free make-ahead method. I have a small non-stick frying pan that I keep solely for crepes and the results are always perfect.


Crepes Suzette

For about 20 crepes you will need:

125g plain flour
500ml milk
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon vanilla sugar (I keep a couple of vanilla pods in a jar of castor sugar)
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon melted butter
1/4 teaspoon salt

Place the eggs and milk in a blender and process then add the dry ingredients, oil and melted butter and process further until you have a smooth batter. Pout into a large jug and set aside for an hour.

Heat your pan, then turn the heat back to moderate. You will generally need to make one trial crepe to make sure you have the pan temperature right, then leave it at that heat for the whole batch.

Melt a little butter in the pan then pour off the excess, or wipe it off with a paper towel. I usually just put a smear of butter on the pan with a paper towel between each crepe.

Give the batter a final whisk, then pour a little into the hot pan. Tilt the pan so the mix evenly covers the bottom. Don't use too much batter - you want a thin pancake.

It will take about 40 seconds for the crepe to turn golden on the bottom. Turn it over with a spatula and cook for a further 20-30 seconds on the other side. Tip out onto a plate. If you're freezing the crepes, alternate between two plates and let each crepe cool down before placing a square of freezer film or waxed paper on top.

Repeat until you have your batch of crepes, stacking as you go.

To finish the crepes you will need:

2 large oranges
90g castor sugar
45mls cognac
90mls Grand Marnier, Curacao or Cointreau
100g butter

Grate the zest from the oranges and place in a pan. Squeeze the juice from the oranges and add to the pan with the butter and sugar, a tablespoon of cognac and half the liqueur. Heat for about a minute.

Dip the crepes in the syrup, one at a time and fold each in half then in quarters and arrange on a serving dish and keep warm. Pour over the remaining syrup. Heat the liqueur and cognac in a small pan. Bring the crepes to the table, pour over the warmed alcohol and ignite.

Restaurants often finish the crepes at the table, leaving the crepes in the pan, pouring over the cognac and liqueur and shaking above the flame to ignite. For home service, I fold the crepes onto a serving dish, often placing a mandarin segment in each and sprinkling a few additional segments over the dish.

I make a sauce of the orange juice, half the alcohol, the sugar and butter and pour a little over the crepes - say three or four tablespoons - then cover the dish with plastic film and set aside until required. At serving time I warm the sauce in a microwave proof jug then pour it over the crepes which I then heat through for a couple of minutes in the microwave. Just prior to serving, warm the additional cognac and liqueur, pour over the crepes, ignite and bring to the table still flaming.

This is best served simply with lightly whipped cream flavoured with vanilla sugar.