Polish Naleśniki Pancake Food

NALEśNIKI (POLISH SWEET OR SAVORY CREPES)

Steps:

• Gather the ingredients.
• In a blender or food processor , combine flour, milk, water, eggs, butter, and salt and process until smooth.
• Transfer batter to a pitcher. Cover the pitcher with plastic wrap and let rest for 30 minutes so liquid can be absorbed by the flour.
• Heat a crepe pan or small skillet over medium heat and lightly coat with butter. Using a 2-ounce ladle, spoon 1 portion of batter into pan.
• Immediately rotate pan and swirl batter until it covers the entire bottom of the pan. Cook until crepe is lightly brown or spotted brown on underside. Flip and cook second side until it is light brown.
• Remove crepe to waxed paper or parchment paper and repeat with remaining batter. You may need to recoat the pan with butter as you cook crepes.
• Place 2 heaping tablespoons of savory filling or sweet filling on each naleśniki. Fold sides in first and then fold bottom up, rolling away from yourself, similar to an egg roll or burrito.
• Filled naleśniki should then be pan-fried in butter over medium-high heat or baked in a buttered casserole dish at 350 F until the filling is set.

MOM'S NALESNIKI (SURPRISINGLY EASY POLISH CREPES)

Steps:

• Combine the flour, salt, egg and 1/2 cup each of milk and water and blend with hand mixer.
• Keep adding the remaining milk and water until you get a batter that's a bit thinner than sour cream. I've included some pictures to get an idea, but it should be pretty runny.
• Heat a frying pan (approx. 9" diameter) over high heat and spray with non-stick spray (or coat with oil that can withstand high temperatures).
• Pour about one and a quarter soup ladle on the center of the hot, greased pan. Tilt the pan immediately to spread the batter around. Remember, the batter may look really thin in spots, but that's ok, it'll still flip once it's cooked through (this is where I always went wrong because it seemed too thin and I panicked, but if it gets too thick it won't set properly).
• Let cook for a few minutes, depending on how hot the pan is this could take from 1-3 minutes. You can tell when it's ready to flip when 1) the crepe slides around when you move the pan and 2) you don't see anymore soft or uncooked areas in the top of the crepe. They're pretty thin so you can literally see the runny sections firm up!
• Flip the crepe over and cook for 30seconds - 1 minutes then slide onto a plate.
• If folding with any mixture, place mixture on half of crepe, fold over then fold over again so you get a quarter triangle. Depending on the filling, they can be served immediately or if using cheese filling (described in the intro, adjust ingredients to your personal preference), fry them up in a bit of butter to get the outside crispy and melt the cheese a bit. For jam or apple sauce, we just roll them up and top with sour cream and/or sugar.

POLISH NALESNIKI (VERY THIN PANCAKE) CREPES

Steps:

• Blend topping ingredients and chill.
• Blend eggs well in a blender, then carefully add flour.
• Add milk.
• Let sit 5 minutes.
• Heat butter or spray cooking spray in frying pan.
• When pan is hot, pour in a small amount of batter (only enough to make a paper-thin pancake), turning pan to coat the bottom.
• When light brown, do not turn over but remove from pan.
• Spread with good cherry or raspberry jam, roll, top with sweetened sour cream and or dust lightly with powdered sugar.

NALESNIKI (POLISH PANCAKES)

Steps:

• Batter: Sift the flour into a large bowl.
• Add the egg and the egg yolks from the separated eggs.
• Add the milk, water, oil and nutmeg and mix thoroughly.
• Whisk the egg whites together with the salt until stiff, and fold into the batter.
• Filling: Cream the butter with the egg yolk and mix together with the cheese.
• Add the sugar and vanilla sugar.
• Mix well.
• If the mixture is too stiff, add a little bit of milk.
• Putting It Together: Melt some of the butter over medium heat in a small frying pan.
• When it's hot, pour in about 2tbs of batter and cook on both sides until lightly browned.
• Remove from pan and keep warm in the oven at low heat.
• Repeat until all of the batter is used.
• Put a tablespoonful of filling on each pancake, fold over and serve hot.