Love Bites: Marital Skirmishes in the Kitchen. Christopher Hirst

with the crêpe, it took me a while to get the knack of galettes, which are thicker and moister. In a less-than-appetising comparison, one Breton writer said galettes are macramé while crêpes are Valenciennes lace. Eventually I steered a middle course between the soggy dishcloth galette and the so-brittle-it-cracks galette. I even managed to do the fried-egg galette. After cooking one side, you flip it over and break an egg in the middle. The intention is that this cooks through the pancake. When both galette and egg are just about cooked, you fold over the four edges so the yolk appears in the little window. This is all easier said than done. When the galette is cooked, the egg tends to be underdone. When the egg is cooked, the galette is heading for burnt. Still, my effort scored highly with my severest judge. ‘Mmm, this is really good,’ said Mrs H, when I presented her with a galette filled with an egg and grated Gruyère. ‘Lots of potential here. It could be breakfast, lunch or light supper. Do you fancy doing another?’

      Somewhat less demanding in construction is the galette with sausage, sold at crêpe stalls in Breton markets. The pancake is simply wrapped round a hot meaty sausage. Mrs H is a big fan. This delicacy is known as the galette robiquette after La Robiquette, a district of Rennes noted for the excellence of its bangers. There are a number of rules for the consumption. La Sauvegarde de la Galette Saucisse Bretonne (Society for the Preservation of the Breton Sausage Galette) demands that the sausage should weigh at least 125g, be consumed without mustard, accompanied only by cider and cost no more than two euros. However, local taste is questioned by Kate Whiteman, who advises readers to make sure the galette is hot off the press: ‘The Bretons are partial to sizzling hot sausages wrapped in a cold soggy galette.’ I haven’t tried the cold soggy version, but I once made the mistake of accepting the offer of a double wrapping of galettes round my sausage. I managed to chomp my way through it but the after-effect is a little hard to describe. Have you ever eaten a blanket?

       Mrs H on pancakes, crêpes and galettes

      To make any pancake, crêpe or galette, you need to think ahead a bit. At least an hour is required to let the batter mix stand or rest in order to release the starch in the flour to swell and soften. A well-stood batter makes a lighter pancake or crêpe. So make an early start if you have a meal at a certain time in mind. You can make pancakes by hand – using a wooden spoon to beat the mix – but for those who don’t want to develop uneven biceps an electric hand-mixer is the gadget you need. A proper crêpe pan (a frying sized pan with a shallow rim) is ideal for batter products as you can flip and turn with greater ease. But you can’t beat a decent non-stick pan that is heated to the right temperature.

      N.B. I always look upon the first pancake as a bit of a practice run. Sometimes in your haste and response to the clamours from the table to ‘get a move on’ you find you haven’t let the pan heat up properly or the pan hasn’t quite become non-stick. The first pancake will also tell you if your batter is too thick or too thin. Add a little extra milk if the batter is too thick. Once you get going, pancakes take no time at all to cook – perhaps 1–2 minutes for the first side and about a minute for the second. Give the batter mix a stir before cooking each pancake – the mix can settle.

       Mrs H’s recipe for Shrove Tuesday pancakes

      This is a standard recipe for the sort of pancake you only have to make once a year – when the price of lemons goes up. A mix with 125g of flour should make about eight pancakes. Alter the ingredients if your table greedily demands more. Because you set up a sort of production line, making this sort of pancake is a smelly business however little fat you try to use for frying – so don’t wear your best clothes and keep the windows open.

       125g plain flour

       a pinch of salt

       1 large egg, beaten

       300ml milk

       a little oil for frying

       caster sugar and lemon juice to serve

      Begin by sifting the flour and salt into a bowl and make a well in the centre (or as I saw once in an American recipe, ‘sink a shaft’). Add the egg and mix in. Next gradually add the milk, drawing the flour in from the sides. Continue whisking until a smooth creamy batter is formed. Let the batter stand for at least 30 minutes. After heating the pan and adding a tiny amount of oil, pour in enough batter to coat the base of the pan. Cook the first side until you see that the centre is drying and the sides crisping. Flip or toss and cook the second side. After turning out on to a plate, sprinkle caster sugar and lemon juice on the pancake and roll up in a sausage shape. Add more sugar and lemon if the diner starts grizzling that you haven’t added enough.