A long time ago, I used to live in the suburbs of Melbourne. Each time I or my family travelled to the countryside by train, we would stop in at The Pancake Parlour. I used to love the olde worlde feel of the place, it’s decoration, the giant chess peaces and boards, it was like being in an Alice in Wonderland theme park.
My all time favorite dish was their Pancake Tabriz. The menu described it as, “Ground beef cooked in red wine with herbs, bacon, onions, mushrooms, tomatoes, and other delights.”
To me, it was kinda exotic sounding, and was always flavourful, if somewhat salty from time to time. Since those times, I try to take my son there whenever we go back to Australia for a visit. I still order the Tabriz, it still has the same salt issues, but I love it. However, childhood memories, as dear as they are to me, still taunt me with an unattainable past.
I make my own crepes now, and occasionally take a tilt at the Tabriz Sauce, which is at it’s core, a Boeuf Bourguignon with tomatoes, made with ground beef. But there are also some specific herbs and aromatics that make this sauce a Tabriz and not a Bourguignon. These are: tarragon, dill, parsley, tumeric, and leeks.
This recipe is another “pinch and dash” recipe, one of those that you can play with endlessly.
Pancakes Tabriz
Ingredients
- 250g Ground beef
- 100g Whole bacon or bacon rashers
- 1/4 cup Diced Onion
- 1/4 cup Diced Mushroom
- 1/2 cup Diced, seeded, skinned tomatoes (optional) or
- 1 tbsn Fine diced carrots (optional)
- 2 tspn Tarragon
- 2 tspn Parsley
- 1/2 Leek
- 1/4 tspn Tumeric (optional)
- 1 tspn Coarse ground back pepper
- 1 tspn Rough crushed sea salt
- 400ml Beef/Chicken Stock
- 1/4 cup Red wine
- 1-2 tbsn Olive oil &/or butter
Method
- Cut bacon into batons (or rashers into coarse dice) and sweat off in a dry nonstick pan until crisp. Remove bacon from pan, set aside and retain the fat.
- Sweat the onions and mushrooms (and carrots) in the bacon fat. Tip off into a stewing pot, add stock and boquet garni bag made of leek, parsley & tarragon.
- Brown the beef in the pan with some extra fat, add the pepper and tumeric (optional) and mix well. Deglaze the pan with wine, drop the heat to a simmer and reduce by half.
- Add meat mixture to the stewing pot and bring to boil. Finely dice/shred the bacon and add to the stew pot. Simmer uncovered for 20 min. Or until the liquid becomes the consistency of a thin sauce.adjust the seasoning with salt and, if necessary, thicken slightly with cornflour.
Take two freshly cooked pancakes (crepes) add some of the Tabriz Sauce to the center, roll (or fold over) and top with more sauce. Garnish and serve, with a fresh garden salad if you like.
And there you have my, “Pancakes Tabriz.”
That’s all from the Bait Layer today,
Get that int’ ya!