Hungarian Palacintas

One of the biggest influences on my palate is my grandmother, and I am pretty sure my sister won't argue that she is the same. Having a mixed and mashed background which includes the cuisine of Eastern Europe, as well as the Middle East, means that our comfort food varies from hummus to these palacintas, most similar to crepes. Growing up, my grandmother would make these as a sweet treat for desert. The dough itself is not very sweet, however you can fill it with a variety of sweet fillings. We always used jam, and my personal favourite is the berry blends with tons of real fruit chunks inside. As we chowed down on the palacintas this time around, we decided that they would be excellent with savoury fillings as well. Something like herb and garlic ricotta, turkey and swiss cheese, or ham for any ham lovers out there. Here is our grandmother's palacinta (pronounced pal-a-chin-ta) recipe(well as much as she could give, as she barely uses recipes herself).

Ingredients

1 egg

1 1/2 cups water

1 1/2 cups flour

2 teaspoons canola oil

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

pinch of salt

Instructions

Crack the egg into a bowl and beat thoroughly. Combine the other wet ingredients (water and canola oil) with the egg.

Mix together flour, baking powder and salt. My grandmother says the fancier cooks sift these together, so it is your choice. I didn't and they turned out great.

Mix the wet and dry ingredients together until combined. The mixture should be rather liquid, much more then a pancake batter. I would say a loose pudding consistency.

Let the batter sit for at least 10 minutes, covered in the refrigerator.

After the batter has been left to sit, preheat a skillet/frying pan (or two to get through the batter faster). I used non-stick frying pans, but still used a little dab of butter for each pancake. I tried using cooking spray, but found that the outside of the palacinta did not brown up at all, and who doesn't love just a little taste of butter? I had the frying pans on high, but you'll have to adjust the temperature to your stove, my stove is not that hot.

Ladle out enough batter to lightly cover the bottom of your frying pan. You will inevitably ladle out too much batter, because it is hard to estimate how much is needed, but these really should be quite thin. I found that you could use about a third of a ladle to effectively coat an average sized pan. It's all a matter of the size of your equipment (that's what she said!). Once the batter is in the pan, quickly twist your wrist around ensuring coverage of the entire pan and a perfect circle. This takes practice, and even the greats, like my grandmother, don't always get it the first few times. Don't be discouraged though, it all looks the same on the way out!

One the batter is all spread in the pan, wait a few moments until the palacinta is loose, and has a golden colour to it. flip it gently and wait a few more seconds until you get a similar grown colour on the other side. All this should be fairly quick and I would guesstimate that it should take about 4-6 minutes from start to finish.

Once you are done each palacinta, let them cool for a few moments on a piece of paper towel, and then stack the cooled palacintas with paper towel between each on a plate, ready to serve.

Serve with any filling you like, and obviously adjust this recipe for the amount that you wish to make. I made about 20 palacintas with this recipe.

Buon appetito!