Finishing up the Cs - We're in Czechoslovakia!
When we initially did our research for Czech pancakes, we came up with palacinky, which as you can probably guess, is the Czech version of crepes. Since we found it relatively quickly and easily, we just planned on making crepes for our next stop in Czechoslovakia. However, as we were driving home from a concert, I decided to look up the recipe I planned on using to verify we had everything to make Czech crepes the next day. This time, instead of using Google to search, I used Bing on my phone, and boy was I surprised. I don't know why, but I'm always surprised when I get completely different results for my searches based on the search engine I use. You would think I wouldn't be surprised by now.
Anyway, after Binging Czechoslovakian pancakes, I discovered that the Czechs have another type of pancake called a bramborak. What's a bramborak you say? Well I'll tell you, it's a potato pancake! Now what am I supposed to do? Czechoslovakia seems to make two of my most favorite forms of pancakes. How in the world am I supposed to choose which one to make?!? Well the answer is simple, we decided an outside of the box choice and chose to make them both. Yippee! Potatoes and nutella here we come!
We'll start with the palacinky recipe. If you don't want to make palacinky and want to skip to the bramborak, scroll down halfway and start at that point. Here is what you'll need to make them:
2 cups of milk
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
3/4 cup of all purpose flour
nutella (or any other sweet spread you'd like to place inside)
roasted, chopped almonds
The first thing you'll want to do is roast and chop your almonds (alternatively you can buy them already roasted and chopped for you). Place about half a cup of almonds in a frying pan on medium heat and roast for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
After roasting, set them aside to cool, and then chop them once cooled.
Now place all of the dry ingredients into a medium sized bowl and give them a whisk to stir everything up.
Add your two egg yolks to the two cups of milk and give it a little stir.
Next, slowly add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk until there are no lumps.
The batter will end up much thinner than the above picture once you've add all of the liquid. I just added a little bit of liquid at a time to make sure that the batter stayed smooth and didn't get lumpy. Next get out your crepe pan and heat it up. Spray a little bit of oil on the pan. Once the pan and oil are heated, ladle some batter onto the pan and swirl in the usual manner for crepes.
Cook until the top is dry, and then flip and cook for another minute or two. I found these to be too liquidy, and I couldn't flip the palacinky. It could have been because it was very humid here and the moisture in the air was affecting the batter. So I ended up adding about another tablespoon of flour to the batter, and they were much easier to flip.
Once cooked, remove from heat, spread the Nutella over it, and sprinkle on some chopped almonds.
Finally fold or roll your palacinky. We opted to roll it to make sure we got yummy Nutella and almond flavor in every bite. Once folded, you can top it with whipped cream and cocoa if you'd like, but we thought that would be sugar overload, so we left them untopped.
Continue cooking in the same manner until all of the palacinky batter is used. Remember, you can refrigerate and/or freeze the crepes after they are made, so you might want to omit the filling steps.
Now on to the bramborak recipe. You'll need the following to make bramborak:
400 grams of potatoes
1 clove of garlic
3/4 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of majoram
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper
1 egg beatern
1/4 cup of milk
First put all of your dry ingredients and the garlic in a bowl and mix them up.
Next peel and shred your potatoes on the fine side of a box grater.
After shredding the potatoes, squeeze out the excess water between two paper towels and add them along with the milk and egg to the dry ingredients.
Now mix together until you have a homogeneous dough. Now you're ready to heat up some oil in a frying pan. Once the oil is heated, drop by tablespoon into the oil and flatten out into a pancake shape.
Cook on one side until browned and dry around the edges (about 4-5 minutes), then flip and cook on the other side.
Drain excess oil on a cooling rack placed over a cookie sheet. Continue cooking in the same manner until all of the bramborak batter is used up. This recipe made about 6 bramborak.
Here is the final product for the two panackes:
Now our bramborak was a little bit thicker and more doughy than I expected from the picture in the recipe I used. I suspect this might have been because I squeezed out the excess water from the potatoes. The recipe didn't say to do this, but I assumed I should since I always have when I make potato pancakes. If you'd like a slightly thinner, less doughy pancake, I suggest not draining out the liquid from the shredded potato. Both of these were quite tasty! I think the Nutella crepe needs one more close up shot.
Yum!
Anyway, after Binging Czechoslovakian pancakes, I discovered that the Czechs have another type of pancake called a bramborak. What's a bramborak you say? Well I'll tell you, it's a potato pancake! Now what am I supposed to do? Czechoslovakia seems to make two of my most favorite forms of pancakes. How in the world am I supposed to choose which one to make?!? Well the answer is simple, we decided an outside of the box choice and chose to make them both. Yippee! Potatoes and nutella here we come!
We'll start with the palacinky recipe. If you don't want to make palacinky and want to skip to the bramborak, scroll down halfway and start at that point. Here is what you'll need to make them:
2 cups of milk
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon of sugar
1/4 teaspoon of salt
3/4 cup of all purpose flour
nutella (or any other sweet spread you'd like to place inside)
roasted, chopped almonds
The first thing you'll want to do is roast and chop your almonds (alternatively you can buy them already roasted and chopped for you). Place about half a cup of almonds in a frying pan on medium heat and roast for about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
After roasting, set them aside to cool, and then chop them once cooled.
Now place all of the dry ingredients into a medium sized bowl and give them a whisk to stir everything up.
Add your two egg yolks to the two cups of milk and give it a little stir.
Next, slowly add the liquid ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk until there are no lumps.
The batter will end up much thinner than the above picture once you've add all of the liquid. I just added a little bit of liquid at a time to make sure that the batter stayed smooth and didn't get lumpy. Next get out your crepe pan and heat it up. Spray a little bit of oil on the pan. Once the pan and oil are heated, ladle some batter onto the pan and swirl in the usual manner for crepes.
Cook until the top is dry, and then flip and cook for another minute or two. I found these to be too liquidy, and I couldn't flip the palacinky. It could have been because it was very humid here and the moisture in the air was affecting the batter. So I ended up adding about another tablespoon of flour to the batter, and they were much easier to flip.
Once cooked, remove from heat, spread the Nutella over it, and sprinkle on some chopped almonds.
Finally fold or roll your palacinky. We opted to roll it to make sure we got yummy Nutella and almond flavor in every bite. Once folded, you can top it with whipped cream and cocoa if you'd like, but we thought that would be sugar overload, so we left them untopped.
Continue cooking in the same manner until all of the palacinky batter is used. Remember, you can refrigerate and/or freeze the crepes after they are made, so you might want to omit the filling steps.
Now on to the bramborak recipe. You'll need the following to make bramborak:
400 grams of potatoes
1 clove of garlic
3/4 cups of flour
1 tablespoon of majoram
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon of ground black pepper
1 egg beatern
1/4 cup of milk
First put all of your dry ingredients and the garlic in a bowl and mix them up.
Next peel and shred your potatoes on the fine side of a box grater.
After shredding the potatoes, squeeze out the excess water between two paper towels and add them along with the milk and egg to the dry ingredients.
Now mix together until you have a homogeneous dough. Now you're ready to heat up some oil in a frying pan. Once the oil is heated, drop by tablespoon into the oil and flatten out into a pancake shape.
Cook on one side until browned and dry around the edges (about 4-5 minutes), then flip and cook on the other side.
Drain excess oil on a cooling rack placed over a cookie sheet. Continue cooking in the same manner until all of the bramborak batter is used up. This recipe made about 6 bramborak.
Here is the final product for the two panackes:
Now our bramborak was a little bit thicker and more doughy than I expected from the picture in the recipe I used. I suspect this might have been because I squeezed out the excess water from the potatoes. The recipe didn't say to do this, but I assumed I should since I always have when I make potato pancakes. If you'd like a slightly thinner, less doughy pancake, I suggest not draining out the liquid from the shredded potato. Both of these were quite tasty! I think the Nutella crepe needs one more close up shot.
Yum!
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