Charred Corn Crepes with Lemon Ricotta Filling

Crepes are one of my favorite things to eat. I still dream about the crepes I ate over in Europe, particularly this one little crepe shop on the side of the Seine. I wouldn't really call it a shop as it was just this one little shack with a delightful French man who gave you your crepes through a window. But they were some of the best crepes I've ever eaten. Light and buttery and just the right amount of sweet.

Now I'm a firm believer that crepes are for more than sweets. Savory crepes are truly a delicious balance of sweet and saltiness. Patrick, the other (and often I think better) cook in our house came upon a recipe for roasted corn crepes that are truly ingenious. The roasted flavor and the sweetness of the corn gives the crepes a multidimensional flavor. A nutty sweet complexity that is rather addicting. We've tried the corn crepes with multiple fillings and toppings as I feel like they are a bit more versatile and your regular flour crepes. We've done a simple honey and butter; Mexican style with chicken, cheese and salsa; and just the other night with lemon ricotta filling and berries. All have been delicious but the sweetness of the filling and the nuttiness of the crepes was a rather brilliant paring that I can't wait to try again.

Charred Corn Crepes (Adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

The original recipe called for jut one ear of corn but we prefer to use two as it gives the crepes a richer roasted corn flavor. Yields about six to nine crepes.

2 large fresh corn cob
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1/2 cup flour
1 cup milk, any fat level will do
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon table salt
Butter or oil for pan

To char corn: Shuck your corn but leave the “stem” on if you can; it makes a great handle. Over a hot grill or an open gas-stove flame, char the corn until well-blackened but not completely burnt. The corn with pop and snap but don’t fret, it won’t cause any harm other than to send hunger pains sharply though your stomach with its heavenly sent. Remove cob from heat, and when cool enough to handle, shave off kernels using a large knife. You should have about 1 cup kernels. Transfer to a bowl and pour melted butter over it; let cool to lukewarm.

Make crepe batter: Place corn-butter mixture in a blender with flour, milk, eggs and salt. Blend until mostly smooth (a few bits and coarse piece of corn are awesome but too many will make the batter hard to pour and spread in the pan). Cover and refrigerate. The original recipe tells you to refrigerate for an hour but we've found that even a half hour works great. This last time we didn't refrigerate at all and the crepes were a little crumbly but still worked fine, but the refrigeration gives the batter a change to firm up.

Cook crepes: Heat an 8- to 9-inch skillet (nonstick makes things even easier here) over medium heat. Coat very lightly with butter or oil. Pour 3  to 4 tablespoons batter into the center of the skillet and roll it around so that it evenly coats the bottom. Cook until edges appear lightly brown, then flip the crepe* and cook it on the reverse side for another 30 seconds.
Slide crepe onto a paper towel-coated plate or counter. Repeat with remaining crepe batter, re-buttering pan as needed. Cooling crepes can overlap on the towels. Cooled crepes can be stacked and will not stick to each other.

Lemon Ricotta Filling

For this recipe I found that the 1/4 cup of sugar made it just a little too sweet. I would have probably decreased it to 2 tablespoons so that it made a more balanced flavor. The 1/4 cup was delicious, don't get me wrong, but it turned out to be more of a dessert than dinner.

8 oz. Ricotta cheese

1/4 (or 2tbps.) granulated sugar

1 tsp. vanilla

2 tbps. milk

Zest of 1 lemon

Juice of half a lemon

Mix all the ingredients in a food processor until smooth. Spread the filling on the crepes and either roll or fold the crepes. We filled ours with blackberries and blueberries which was quite delightful. We also drizzled ours with some raspberry rhubarb syrup, but the filling is so sweet with the 1/4 cup of sugar you really don't need any kind of syrup.