Left-over chicken à la Peking Duck
By: A.C. Flory
Tags: The Leftovers, Chicken, Pancake, Food, Recipe

I love throwing a whole chicken in the oven and serving it up with crusty bread and salad, but with just the Offspring and I at home, there are always left-overs, and neither of us like cold chicken sandwiches. So, what to do with all that chicken?

The answer to my culinary conundrum arrived a couple of months ago when I made five spice chicken and was again faced with far too many leftovers. As Five Spice is an Asian flavouring, I dragged out my beloved Charmaine Solomon bible — The Complete Asian Cookbook — and began searching for a recipe. It wasn’t long before I found one for Peking Duck — tender morsels of duck served on a special ‘pancake’ with slivers of cucumber and spring onions. [Yes, those of you who’ve read Nabatea will recognize where that meal came from].

Sadly, the special pancake looked like a heck of a lot of work, but it did start me thinking: why not make an ordinary, savoury ‘crepe’ instead?

The following recipe can be used with any type of cooked, leftover chicken.

Savoury crepe recipe

1 cup of plain flour [sometimes called all-purpose flour]

1 egg white [save the yolk for homemade custard]

a pinch of salt

a couple of drops of sesame oil

cold water

peanut oil for frying

a heavy, cast iron frying pan if available

Well tempered, cast iron frying pan bought from a camping supply shop 20 years ago

Fillings

Leftover cooked chicken [1/2 a whole roasted chicken is more than enough for 3 adults and over-kill for 2]

cucumber [1]

spring onions [4 or 5 depending on size]

Asian Plum Sauce or Hoisin Sauce if you prefer [both can be found in the Asian section of most supermarkets in Melbourne].

Method

Begin by cutting the chicken off the bone and slicing it into bite-sized strips. Place into a small serving bowl.

Next, peel the cucumber and cut it lengthwise into thin strips. No need to take out the seeds.

Peel and slice spring onions the same way. Place the cucumber and spring onion into separate serving bowls.

Now it’s time to make the crepes. Put the flour, salt, egg white and a few tablespoons of cold water into a mixing bowl and whisk until the batter is free of lumps. [The batter will be quite heavy but this makes it possible to beat out the lumps].

Add a few drops of sesame oil and a little more water and whisk again.

Continue adding water until the batter has the consistency of pouring cream. If you’re unsure of the consistency, dip a small ladle into the batter and watch as you pour it back into the bowl. The flow should be smooth and quick without being too ‘watery’.

Next, place the frying pan on the stove with about 1/2 a tablespoon of peanut oil and heat on a moderate flame until you can feel the heat if you hover your hand a few inches above the pan. [The pan has to be quite hot but you don’t want the oil to burn.]

Pour a [small] ladle full of batter into the pan and ‘swirl’ quickly so it coats the bottom of the pan as evenly as possible. If the pan is at the right temperature, the batter will stick wherever it touches the pan, allowing you to swirl it into a rough circle. Remember, these are crepes, not pancakes so they must be as thin as you can make them.

As soon as the bottom of the crepe is a pale gold, flip it over and cook the other side until just done.

I’m not a chef so I don’t ‘throw’ the crepes in the air, I just use a long, thin spatula to turn them gently:

This is my pancake spatula. The matchbox is for size comparison only

Not as spectacular but much less messy when things go wrong.

I can usually cook two crepes before needing to replenish the oil in the pan, but different pans will have different results so adjust the amount of oil you use according to your pan. Just don’t make the crepes too greasy.

Place the cooked crepes on a serving dish near the stove to keep them warm.

To serve up, each person should place a small amount of chicken, cucumber, spring onion and Plum Sauce [or Hoisin Sauce] on the pancake and then either roll it up, European-style*:

or fold it into a small packet:

*If you go to the foodtolove.com.au site, you will find another ‘cheats’ recipe for Peking Duck. I haven’t tried it but it looks good if you’ve got a bit more time up your sleeve.

And there you have it, dinner is served and nothing is wasted. Enjoy.

acflory