The one where Fiona tries to show off*

*And wishes she was ambidextrous. And wishes she was better at taking photos of food.

It’s good to get out of your culinary comfort zone once in a while and try something new or a bit more challenging. With that in mind, I decided to have a go at a soufflé for the first time. I knew it wouldn’t be technically difficult, but was still more than a little bit apprehensive that I’d a) end up with a large dish of scrambled eggs, b) have a totally unrisen soufflé or c) both. Airless, slightly cheesy scrambled eggs does not sound overly appetising.

My first issue was knowing that I’d have to stick to a recipe. No playing about and experimenting with a first baking attempt. Rifling through most of my cookbooks didn’t really help, until I remembered that I’ve got a copy of Larousse Gastronomique. Until now, I’ve only ever used it as an encyclopaedia, rather than a recipe book, wistfully flicking through the pages at complicated, yet amazing-looking food. I figured that this food bible would have at least one recipe I could use.

Larousse Gastronomique - the foodie's bible

I was right, and it didn’t look too complicated either. So off I bimbled to Monoprix to stock up on eggs, milk and gruyère. Gruyère cheese was quite difficult to find, hidden amongst the many varied bags of pre-grated (or rapé, cue childish giggle,) emmental. I nearly had a heart attack when I saw the price under the packet said €15.66, until I realised that that was per kilo and that each piece was individually priced. Panic over, I went back home and had a quick power nap before hitting the kitchen, giving my eggs time to reach room temperature.

Before I began work on the soufflé itself, I made the sauce to go with it. In olive oil and a knob of butter, I gently sautéed a finely diced onion and 3 cloves of garlic with a small amount of chopped leek and a bay leaf for about 30 minutes.

Onion, garlic and bay leaf

Cook sloooowly

Cooking slowly meant that the ingredients wouldn’t darken in colour and I wanted to keep my sauce as close to white as possible. I made a béchamel sauce from 20g butter, 20g plain flour and roughly 150ml cold milk, before seasoning with salt and pepper. I then stirred in some madeira wine and about 3tbsp water. Once the onion mixture was cooked properly, I mixed it into the sauce and put the whole lot through the blender before putting to one side to be reheated before serving. (Putting out of reach as well as out of the way – it was full of yum!)

Next up was the soufflé. I buttered and floured the dish and turned the oven on to pre-heat. I separated 4 eggs, beat the whites until stiff (titter!) and grated my gruyère. None of this electric whisk malarkey for me. Oh no, I was going to do it the old fashioned way and use a hand whisk. Ouch. The last 6 months away from pulling pints and changing barrels have left my arm considerably weaker than it used to be. Time to get back behind a bar, methinks (but that’s another story for another day children.)

Stiff eggs

Gruyère rapé

As if one lot of béchamel wasn’t enough for one evening, I made another batch, with twice the quantities of the first lot, this time seasoning with salt, pepper and nutmeg. This is where I started to witter a bit. Mixing my egg yolks into the sauce, I was worried that this would be the beginning of that steep descent into scrambled egg territory. But no, so far, so smooth. Good good. I melted the cheese into the mixture, then gently folded in the egg whites, leaving me with something that looked like slightly lumpy custard. This was then spooned (this post should turn into a game of “how many double entendres can Fiona fit into one article”) carefully into the buttered and floured dish.

Raw soufflé

La Roux - Not Bulletproof

This then went into a hot oven for 30 minutes, with me under strict instructions from Larousse not to open the oven door under any circumstances. I did briefly consider sitting cross-legged in front of the oven door watching to see if it would actually rise, before I remembered that I had other things to cook as well.

I’ve got one of those traditional metal steamer thingies that you put in a saucepan, thereby stopping me from purchasing an electric steamer that I would never use/would take up too much space. It’s really good and apart from the occasional not-putting-enough-water-in-the-pan-so-the-pan-boils-dry-and-smells-bad issues, it’s completely fool-proof. I diced carrot and turnip and left them to do their steaming.

Steamer

Yummy market veg

Oooh, I forgot. I’ve got a new pan! My Dad came to visit before Christmas and treated me to this wonderous piece of cooking wonderfulness that is a shiny new, 30cm diameter, heavy-based Tefal frying pan. I love it. It’s actually too big to fit in the drawer where I keep all my other pans, but I don’t care because it means I can keep it on the hob and just look at it. The last bit of my meal involved slowly cooking sliced leeks in said shiny new pan for about 20 minutes until tender, but not too soft.

Shiny lovely pan

Lovely leeks

Lovely leeks in shiny lovely pan

With about 5 minutes left until the moment of truth, I started to put it all together. I ended up having to use cold plates because I was so scared about opening the oven door and incurring the wrath of the gods of Larousse. I put a splodge (technical term) of my now-reheated onion sauce on the plate, and layered the leeks and the steamed vegetables on top, before adding a bit more of the sauce. The plate didn’t look terribly colourful, but that was deliberate, honest.

Nearly there...

So, after cooking for two hours, the alarm went off and I was suddenly too scared to open the oven door. I knew if I didn’t though that the soufflé would burn and it would all smell bad and that everything would be a bugger to clean, and everyone knows how much I need my kitchen to be spotless, so I went for it…

Joy! It had risen! After a quick photo, and wanting to show off before it went all droopy, the soufflé was on the table. And lo! it was good. The gruyère was perfect, just strong enough to make its presence felt, but not too overpowering and went pleasingly well with the onion sauce. The recipe’s timings were spot on, making it light and airy, but still moist in the middle. I’m still wearing my proud grin face now.

Fiona's first soufflé

~ by twotrackmind on January 14, 2010.