Cooking with dyspraxia: egg and gluten free crepes
Ingredients for ham and mushroom crepes.
Cooking with dyspraxia is starting to get easier for me. I have to admit, however, that cooking with dyspraxia may not be getting easy for my non- d glamorous assistant, A.K.A the frog. She is a big fan of all things creme and crepe. The frog, however, is a gluten intolerant and I am egg intolerant, so that means the crepes have to be egg free and gluten free.
This one was more frustrating for the frog than it was for me but I still had some fences to over come. There was a lot of stirring and, as an adult with dyspraxia, I have issues with grip due to a dyspraxic symptom being poor dexterity. I had to spend long periods with the fork held tightly in hand while pounding the contents of the pan into a creamy sauce.
the dyspraxic chef making bechamel sauce
I was making this one up as I went along, and that is not how the frog rolls. She was getting increasingly irritated and I didn’t understand why. We had role reversed, I was relaxed and adding milk
and flour like a pro, and she was panicking that it didn’t look how it should.
Depending on the kind of crepe you want, add either a pinch of salt or sugar. We wanted to make salty crepes, stuffed with a bechamel, bacon, and mushrooms.
the dyspraxic chef bechamel sauce becomes thicker
Two flours is company, three’s a crowd
I used three kinds of flour for these crepes like pancakes, due to the gluten intolerant, so it is important to get the amounts correct, as it is very easy to end up with chewy crepes. In total, I used 200g of flour, if making it gluten free you can mix any type of flour you want, but you have to pick the right ones to complement each other. In this case, I used rice flour, chickpea flour, and buckwheat flour. Rice flour is quite cheap for a gluten free flour and the texture is similar to wheat flour, BUT it tastes like an old shoe, so only use a little bit. I used corn starch to replace the eggs because it is cheap, effective and does not taste like an old shoe.
The flour and starch were added to a pan and then I began to add milk. Because I didn’t have the right type of measuring jug, I had to guess how much milk to use. I spent long periods of time mixing, this time would have been less if I would have added the milk sooner. In total, I used half a liter or so. The key is to add and mix until the texture is right, keeping in mind that gluten free crepes need to be thicker than normal crepes to hold together. Then I left the mixture to sit for about half an hour. It was tiring to make the mix, my hand cramped up and started to ache after just a few minutes. I suppose that is where my non-dyspraxic obsessive compulsive tendencies help along with the dyspraxic determination. I tried to loosen the grip on the fork, but I can’t do it otherwise.
Cooking with dyspraxia: rest brakes
After letting it settle and having a much-needed rest of the legs, I was back at the stove attempting to make a bechamel. To do this, I used corn starch, milk and a bit of salt. I then spent the next 20 minutes frantically stirring while trying to placate an increasingly irritated frog. The French are very passionate about food and things were not going to plan.
The bechamel was not taking the creamy form that it should and the crepe mix really did look like a combination of prison porridge and two days old pancake mix.
At this point, I had three pans on the go. I added a bit of coconut oil to grease the pan and began the process of creping myself.
Trying to spread the mix into the pan in the air and a frog in my ear was pretty tricky. I stayed calm for the most part but a spatula hit the wall at some point.
Hot, hot, heat
I quickly realized that the pan needed to be much hotter. The mix was taking longer to shape than I thought it should, so I turned the pan on full. Before long I had a plate full of pancake looking crepes and in the other pan I had added mushrooms and smoked bacon and it was beginning to smell tasty.
Smokey and the mushroom
The kitchen had calmed down and there was even enough left for chocolate crepes for breakfast.
Give it a go, some hard work and determination and cooking with dyspraxic can be fun and tasty. It did not turn out as planned but it was still a tasty outcome.
On a plate
Mission crepe complete
You’re going to need an oven dish (the size is dependent on how many bellies you have to fill), a chopping board, a small pan, a dish and a drainer. Get your rice and bang it in a pan and let that come to the boil. Maybe add a little bit of salt but I don’t think you’d notice if you didn’t.
