A late soufflé

I had intended to have another go at Hay, Hay it’s Donna Hay again as I really enjoyed the risotto challenge last month but I hadn’t been checking Tami’s lovely Running with Tweezers blog as often as I should and only realised this evening that the deadline was today for posting a soufflé entry. Aghhh, too late to get the relevant ingredients as it’s nearly midnight and I’m afraid a late night soufflé ingredient run is really out of the question. Actually I have got everything I would need to make a soufflé apart from the very crucial milk for the roux base. I don’t drink milk so I don’t keep it in as a matter of course. I buy it when I intend to make a cauliflower gratin, a cheese soufflé, of course some mash potatoes or when MC is coming to visit and he ‘needs’ it for his tea. And woe betide me not having milk when he’s here! So I’m afraid instead of rustling up a last minute new soufflé I will have to cheat slightly and refer back to the soufflé potatoes D and I made for our hastily arranged New Year’s Eve meal.

This particular recipe from the last issue of Fresh magazine (and by that I don’t mean the most recent one but it seems the last ever) uses a ready-made four cheese sauce as its base. I would normally make a cheese sauce myself and next time I make this I will make my own and perhaps add a little English mustard also to give a little extra kick.

Soufflé Potatoes
Fresh - December 2006 Serves 6

700g floury potatoes, peeled and cut into chunks
400g carton fresh four cheese sauce
1-2 tbsp wholegrain mustard
Butter to grease
6 tbsp finely grated fresh Parmesan
3 medium eggs, separated

- Cook potatoes in lightly salted boiling water for 20 minutes until tender, then drain and return to pan stirring over the heat for 1-2 minutes to dry.
- Take off the heat, add cheese sauce, mustard and season with black pepper. Mash well until lump free.
- Pre heat oven to 200c. Grease a soufflé dish (or use 6 ramekin dishes) with butter and sprinkle the base and sides with a little of the Parmesan.
- Add the egg yolks to the potatoes and beat in well.
- Whisk the egg whites until soft peaks form then gently fold into the potatoes.
- Spoon into the dish, sprinkle with the remaining Parmesan and bake for 30 minutes until well risen and then tuck in.

I really filled up the dishes as I only made 2/3^rd of the recipe as there were only three of us but that meant I supposedly had enough mixture for four ramekins. I actually used three small ovenproof dishes but there were still lashings of the cheesy mixture but I figure this would enable the rising. And these soufflés really rose! I am sorry to speak ill of a ‘dead’ magazine as it really does seem that Fresh is no more, but it didn’t recommend cooking individual soufflés for less time that a large one and I think I would probably whip them out of the oven quicker next time.

And photographing soufflés, how much fun is that? These were enormous, luckily, when removed from the oven so I had a little chance to compose a moody shot before they sunk too much. And D acting as my glamorous photographic assistant held a black apron behind the rapidly deflating soufflés to give a cleaner background. Though I may not need so much assistance in that matter again as I purchased a 'photo cube soft box' today which no doubt I will explain more fully when it arrives. All very exciting!

Our fabulous potato soufflés carried on cooking well after serving and seemed to get hotter and hotter with spurts of steam shooting out of them every now and then. I think they can be considered the Mount Vesuvius of the potato (or even soufflé) world but they tasted really good so almost burning my mouth was worth it.

Happy souffléing everyone!