Complete pancake, Classic recipe with buckwheat garnished

The complete Breton galette with traditional ingredients such as white ham, cheese and an egg. I’ll explain everything to you.

With these three ingredients you get a tasty and hearty pancake. Served with a green salad (and a bowl of raw cider!), you have a dish nourishing well balanced but not too rich.
A complete dish, inexpensive and super quick to prepare.

The ingredients

Buckwheat flour pancakes

The base of this garnished pancake is a pancake made with buckwheat flour, also called buckwheat flour. Make no mistake, buckwheat is not a plant from the same family as wheat. It is gluten-free and rich in nutrients, which makes it a healthy choice for a pancake.

There are a multitude of basic pancake recipes, with just buckwheat flour and water like I do, or with the addition of a little wheat flour (soft wheat flour), egg, dairy, etc. Buy your pancakes commercially or make them at home. I give you lots of information and my advice for making buckwheat pancakes successfully in a dedicated article with the recipe of course.

White ham

Use thinly sliced ​​white ham cut into strips to place pieces all over the pancake ; or a thicker slice of ham cut into small cubes.
Your choice, depending on what you have. What I just recommend is not to leave the slice whole but to cut it so that there is ham everywhere.

From the egg

Crack an egg on each patty first before adding the other toppings, this is the ingredient that needs to cook the most. Ideally use very fresh eggs because as we do not want to overcook the pancake and we want a runny yolk which will bind to the other ingredients when we eat the pancake, we will just cook the egg enough, but not for too long.

Forming

Choose the cheese you prefer: Comté, Emmental, Gruyère… The cheese can be grated or cut into thin strips or slices. Not too big, we want the cheese to melt in the pancake.

A touch of crème fraîche

That’s my little personal touch. I don’t know if in Brittany they add cream but as crème fraîche is one of the basic ingredients of Breton cuisine, I don’t think I’m making a culinary misstep! Or is it a Norman variation of the complete Breton galette?

Stop joking, I add a few spots of thick or semi-thick crème fraîche here and there as soon as I turn the pancake after cooking the first side, and before adding the filling ingredients. This adds softness to the pancake and prevents either having to add too much cheese or the pancake being a little dry.

This is of course optional.

In what order to put the ingredients

It’s a bit of a choice, we’re not on a difficult dish so just do what you prefer but what I personally recommend is:

1. If you make your homemade pancakes: cook your pancake on the first side and as soon as the edges come off easily you can turn it over, do it and garnish there.
2. If you use store-bought pancakes (whether bought in supermarkets, at the market or even certain creperies that sell them): butter your pan, arrange the pancake and garnish it immediately without even turning it.

You can use two pans to make your 4 pancakes in two batches, this will avoid waiting too long for the latter and the former eating a little cold. It’s good when the cheese is still melty.

• Prepare all your ingredients because it goes quickly.
• First add a little crème fraîche here and there
• Break the egg placing it in the center. If necessary, tilt your pan a little in several directions so that the white is distributed better.
• Then put pieces of white ham everywhere all around the egg
• Then sprinkle generously with grated cheeseavoiding covering the egg yolk.
• Cook gently until the egg is cooked, then fold in the edges, I’ll explain this below, and serve.

How to fold the pancake

The last step is to fold the pancake. To do this, you need to take the edges of the pancake and fold them towards the center.
It is important not to fold the pancake too much by pressing hard on the folded edges to prevent it from breaking by letting the filling escape or breaking the egg yolk.

The most classic folding is in four to obtain a square shape. as in the photos. You can also make a triangle folding three sides. You can of course serve your pancake as is, flat on a large plate but then no room for the salad or raw vegetables that you will have to serve in a bowl next to it.

There are a multitude of possible folds, I’m preparing a tutorial for you to show you the range of possibilities. There is something to amuse and amaze.
However, all the folds that I show you in this article and video cannot be used for this recipe because we do not want to damage the egg which is at the heart of the presentation.

Vary the toppings

We will no longer be using a classic complete pancake, but as always in cooking, starting from a base there are tons of adaptations to imagine. Vary:

• cheeses by choosing cheese that melts well. Why not goat,
• choose bacon or raw ham instead of ham, or even salmon,
• add vegetables previously fried like mushrooms, leek fondue, onion compote…
• …

Here is my recipe for a complete homemade pancake, cooked in a pan, like in a creperie.

There are of course lots of possibilities when it comes to pancakes, I invite you to read my article to get inspired and find lots of suggestions for your future pancakes.