Jelly and nostalgia

On a roll from last week's jam experiment, and with a massive bag of damsons from my parents' trees, this week I attempted Damson Jelly.
It took a while because you first boil up the fruit, then strain it through muslin for several hours, then boil it up with sugar. So although its not in any way labour-intensive, it does take pretty much the whole day to get to the finish point.
Except, for me, it took until the next day to get to the finish point because the jelly didn't set on the first attempt.
Turns out I was over-eager in potting my jelly and should have let it get to a hotter temperature first. So back in the pan it went the next day, and it did set on the 2nd attempt. Phew.


Then for a bit of nostalgia. Last Christmas we took a day trip on Eurostar to Lille for the Christmas market.


It was one of those crisp cold December days, so after a bit of wandering round Lille we found ourselves a cosy cellar-like bistro for lunch. The only thing on the menu were gallettes. Now I may be ignorant, but I didn't know what gallettes were before that point. They were a revelation. Savoury buckwheat pancakes, with a leek ham and cheese filling, served with a pichet of local cider. Absolutely perfect.
Back in the UK, I searched high and low for buckwheat flour, to no avail. So I had to substitute wholemeal. Not quite the same, but a reasonable result nonetheless.
I had never made pancakes of any kind before so this was a learning curve. The first one was a disaster. Soggy, and disintegrated! The second was not much better. But I did manage to get a couple of decent examples done after a bit of swearing and persistence. Filled with onion, ham and cheese they made a yummy weekend lunch.
I later found out that the french always say that the first pancake is "pour le chien" (for the dog), so clearly I'm not alone in struggling with pancakes. Which is comforting.

Here's the recipe (makes enough for 3 or 4 gallettes):

75-80g flour (wholemeal or buckwheat)
1/2 beaten egg
200ml cold sparkling water
10g melted butter
pinch of salt

Combine all ingredients and whisk together with a fork until smooth and runny.
Cover and leave to stand in the fridge for at least 2 hours. I found that its still good the next day.
When ready to cook your gallettes, remove the mixture from the fridge. Beat with a fork for a few minutes, then heat a small amount of oil in a frying pan. Ladle in some gallette mixture, swirl around to make it as thin as possible and cook for a few minutes. Loosen the edges with a pallette knife (or a fish slice if you're like me and don't have a pallette knife), then flip and cook on the other side. set aside and keep warm.
Repeat for all the mixture.
Make whatever filling you fancy.
Heat pan again, add the gallette, spoon your filling in, fold gallette over to cover your filing. allow a minute or so to get warm through.
Serve.
Yum!