Tasty gluten-free buckwheat crepes are filled with creamy seasonal vegetables in a delicious Springtime dish. Top with grated cheese for extra indulgence!
Do you ever find you have random ingredients that need using up? I seem to have almost a kilo of buckwheat flour in my pantry. Naturally gluten-free and with a delicious nutty flavour, I figured it shouldn’t be too hard to make it into something yummy!
Glorious galettes!
I remembered that when I made this caramelised onion and feta galette, I’d had to differentiate the ‘rustic tart’ kind of galette from the ‘buckwheat crepe’ kind of galette. Buckwheat crepes, or galettes, seemed like a great way to use up some of this flour.
Buckwheat flour is ground from buckwheat, also known sometimes as kasha. It has a slightly sweeter taste than wheat flour and also makes a goopier batter. The batter fries up nicely into golden, even crepes that are delicious with both sweet or savoury fillings.
In The Encyclopedia of Jewish Food, Gil Marks notes that before wheat flour became widely available across Europe, Jewish cooks would prepare buckwheat pancakes to make their blintzes. While wheat flour has largely overtaken buckwheat flour in popularity, it’s nice to revisit these traditional foods occasionally and widen our recipe repertoire.
Buckwheat crepes – ingredients
Once you have your buckwheat flour, the rest of the ingredients are what you would expect to find in a standard pancake or crepe batter. To make these buckwheat crepes you will need:
- buckwheat flour – of course!
- eggs
- milk
- melted butter
And that’s it! Of course you will also need ingredients for whatever filling you choose to put inside your pancakes. I made a delicious and creamy vegetable filling with asparagus, green beans and mushrooms.
Seasonal vegetables
The creamy vegetable filling for these buckwheat crepes incorporates several delicious seasonal vegetables in one lovely summery dish. If you’re lucky enough to have lots of asparagus you can skip the beans and just use the asparagus. Likewise if you have other fresh summer veggies you can cook them up in the creamy sauce and use them to fill your buckwheat crepes.
We grated some fabulous vintage Gouda over the top which was lovely. You could also use parmesan or a similar hard cheese, or skip it altogether.
Buckwheat crepes – a lovely Shavuot recipe
With only a few days to go before Shavuot, it strikes me that these would also make a lovely, light Shavuot meal.
As I mentioned above, the buckwheat crepes are very ‘old fashioned’ traditional blintzes, and the cream cheese in the filling is very appropriate for this dairy festival. Make and fill your buckwheat crepes in advance and simply reheat when you’re ready.
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📖 Recipe
Buckwheat crepes with creamy asparagus, green beans & mushrooms
Ingredients
For the buckwheat crepes
- 100 g buckwheat flour
- 1 egg
- 300 ml milk
- 50 g butter, melted
- Butter or oil for frying
For the filling
- 125 g green beans
- 200 g asparagus
- 125 g mushrooms
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 tablespoon olive oil
- 75 g cream cheese
- Few tablespoon Gouda, parmesan, or other grated hard cheese for sprinkling
Instructions
To make the buckwheat crepes
- Put the buckwheat flour into a mixing bowl and make a well in the centre.
- Whisk the egg and milk together, and pour a small amount into the well in the flour. Begin whisking, gradually adding more egg/milk and incorporating the flour from around the edge. Continue until all the liquid is added and everything is combined into a smooth batter. Cover with cling film and allow to stand for an hour.
- Uncover the batter, and whisk in the melted butter. Heat a heavy based omelette pan over a medium heat and brush with a little butter or oil.
- Pour around 50-60ml (approx. ¼ cup) of batter into the hot pan and swirl to cover the base of the pan. Cook for a minute until the crepe loosens from the pan, then flip over and briefly cook the other side. Remove the crepe to a plate and repeat until all the batter is used up – I made 12 crepes.
To make the filling
- Top and tail the beans, and trim the woody stems from the asparagus. Thinly slice the mushrooms, and crush the garlic.
- Heat the olive oil in a skillet over a medium heat. Cook the mushrooms and garlic for a few minutes until the mushrooms become soft. Add the asparagus and cook for another minute, then add the beans. Cook everything for a few minutes more, until any water from the mushrooms is driven off, and the beans and asparagus are just cooked.
- Lower the heat and stir in the cream cheese – mix gently to avoid breaking up the beans and asparagus.
To assemble
- Heat the oven to 180°C (350°F). Butter a baking dish.
- Divide the filling between the crepes. Roll each one up and arrange them in the baking dish. Dot the top with butter and bake in the hot oven for 15-20 minutes, until the tops are crisp and golden and the filling is piping hot.
- Serve with grated cheese sprinkled over.
Notes
Nutrition
More delicious recipes
Other recipes using asparagus include
- asparagus carbonara with sun-dried tomatoes
- easy roasted asparagus
- mushroom, pesto and asparagus pizza
If you’re in a pancake mood, how about delicious
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