Clouds

Dear Gumdrop-

I must confess that while I love standing in the midst of the kitchen making a clatter and a mess, I do have several cooking related fears. There are just some recipes and techniques that I’m too intimidated to try like my irrational fear of cooking rice properly (yes, I know the answer is a rice cooker, but somehow that feels like cheating). So when you said our first foray into playing with tablespoons would be soufflés, I felt a little…deflated…like the soufflé I suddenly pictured in my head.

But I plucked up my courage and sought out some recipes thinking a lovely chocolate soufflé can’t be that difficult. I know how to whip up egg whites, after all. Since I’d be forcing the Indiscriminate Eater to consume the results, good or bad, I asked his opinion on the matter and was shocked when he asked for a savoury soufflé instead. Suddenly our date night dinner was Classic Cheese Soufflé. There seemed to be only one source for that: Julia Child. Seventies all the way, baby! Alas, I’m woefully bereft of Julia Child cookbooks at home, but I found a variation of her recipe on epicurious.com http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Classic-Cheese-Souffle-242119.

The unexpected thing I discovered about soufflés is that they’re really very simple and wonderfully delicious. I did have some hiccups along the way though. First, I was a klutz with the eggs and kept getting yolk in my whites. I think I went through half a dozen more eggs than I needed. Most tragic of all though was a 6 quart soufflé dish is a lot smaller than you think! As you’ll see from the picture, my dish was too big so I didn’t get the spectacular height I expected. It also took longer than the recipe said or maybe I just like the texture a bit firmer than old Julia did. It was a bit of a homely looking when it arrived at the table, but that's how you know it's homemade, right?

For all that, the IE was effusive in his praise, coming up with the best description possible: “it’s like having a cloud in your mouth”. The texture was so blissfully light and velvety and for someone who doesn’t really care for egg dishes, this is unexpectedly my new go-to for Sunday brunch.

I served the soufflé with baked oyster mushroom and arugla salad with a shallot and garlic vinaigrette and warm baguette. Tres delicieux!

Px