Galettes Galore

Today is Shrove Tuesday when people all over the world make pancakes. In Brittany we are in the Pancake capital of France and folk make or eat  Galettes and Crepes here almost  every day and not just on Shrove Tuesday! In fact there is clear evidence that long before bread existed the buckwheat pancake was made on hot stones way back in the megalithic period when the standing cairns of Carnac and other dolmans around Brittany came into being!

The plain Galette is simply a buckwheat pancake made with water, buckwheat flour and salt. You can also add an egg, dash of oil and a little white flour if you wish to make the modern version. For 12 people you will need the following ingredients:

425g Buckwheat flour (Blé noir Sarrasin)
75g white flour
8g salt (sel de Guérande)
1 large egg
Teaspoon of vegetable oil
1 litre of  tap water

Once the galette is made you may add additional ingredients of your choice (ham, eggs, spinach, mushrooms, seafood etc). Or just have the simple pancake with butter as the locals here have done for aeons!

Method: Mix the ingredients in the bowl using your hands or in a mixer. Add the egg first and the water slowly. Once the batter is made leave in a cool place to rest for about an hour. In the meantime you can prepare a hot pan to work on and have additional ingredients (cheese, ham, eggs to add to the cooking pancake once it is made and reheated.

The skill is to pour the batter on the hot plate as thin as possible and then to get a complete circle of cooked galette without burning the dish! Practice makes perfect as they say and Bretons have the skill as they have been doing this dish for hundreds of years!