Savoury Herb Flädle

Method

1. Make the batter first so it can rest. Blend the eggs, milk, mineral water, salt and melted butter for 20 to 30 seconds until smooth and frothy, then add the flour and starch and pulse only until the flour disappears, scraping down once. Stop there. By hand, whisk flour, starch and salt to a thick paste with a third of the milk, then loosen with the rest and beat in the eggs, butter and water. Rest 30 minutes.
2. Cook the fold-in while the batter rests. Melt the butter over medium heat and cook the leek for 3 to 4 minutes until soft and sweet. Add the mushrooms, turn the heat up, and cook 6 to 8 minutes until they have released their water and it has fully evaporated. Add the garlic for the last minute. Season firmly with salt and pepper, remembering it has a whole batch of bland batter to flavour.
3. Spread it out and let it cool completely. Tip the mixture onto a plate in a thin layer. This is the step people skip and the reason their batter goes thin and grey. Warm filling melts into the batter, loosens it, and steams the pancake from the inside so it never sets properly.
4. Chop it small. Once cool, run a knife through the mixture until the pieces are no bigger than a lentil. Large pieces tear the pancake as you swirl the pan and make it impossible to get thin.
5. Fold in the filling, then the herbs, at the last moment. Stir the cooled mixture into the rested batter with a spatula, then the chives and parsley. Herbs added early bleed and dull, and the batter turns a tired green.
6. Cook over medium heat, a little slower than plain Flädle. Wipe a 24 cm pan with butter, ladle in enough batter to coat the base and swirl quickly before the solids settle. Give each one about 90 seconds on the first side, until the underside is golden and freckled where the filling touches the pan, then flip for another 45 seconds. Stir the batter between each one, because the filling sinks.
7. Serve folded into quarters or rolled, hot from the pan, with sour cream or a green salad.

Fillings

All of these follow the same shape. Cook, cool, chop small, fold in last. Roughly 350 g of prepared filling suits one batch of batter.

• Chive only. No cooking at all. 30 g of finely snipped chives folded straight into the rested batter with plenty of black pepper. The fastest version, and the one closest to a classic Kräuterpfannkuchen.
• Spring onion. 200 g thinly sliced, half of it softened in butter for 2 minutes and half left raw, so you get sweetness and bite together.
• Mushroom and leek. The version above.
• Ham and mushroom. 150 g mushrooms cooked dry as above with 120 g diced cooked ham stirred in off the heat. Cut the salt in the batter to 2 g, since the ham brings its own.
• Bacon and onion. 120 g diced bacon rendered until crisp, the onion cooked in the fat until deep gold, both drained on paper. Pour off all but a spoonful of the fat or the pancakes fry rather than set.
• Cheese and herb. 80 g grated Gruyère or mature cheddar folded in with the herbs, no cooking needed. Cheese browns fast, so drop the heat slightly.
• Spinach and feta. 250 g spinach wilted, squeezed genuinely dry and chopped, with 80 g crumbled feta. Squeezing is not optional; wet spinach ruins the batter.

Notes

• The other way round works too, and is worth knowing. Cook plain Flädle first, keep the sautéed mixture hot and loose in the pan, then spoon it along the centre of each pancake and roll or fold it over. This gives a distinct filling and a clean pancake instead of a flecked one, and it suits chunkier or wetter fillings that would wreck a batter, such as creamed mushrooms or anything with a sauce. It also lets one batch feed people who want different things.
• Folded in gives you an everyday pancake; kept separate gives you a dish. Neither is more correct. Folding in is faster, uses one pan and reheats better; filling and rolling looks like something you cooked on purpose.
• Season the filling harder than tastes right on its own. It is carrying a large volume of unseasoned batter.
• Leftovers reheat well in a dry pan and are good cold, cut into strips, in a lunchbox.