Double baked goat's cheese souffles

You may recall I've written myself a little list - "things a girl like me should know how to cook but doesn't" (I agree it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue, but it's a working title for now). So far I've ticked off steak tartare, English muffins, hollandaise sauce, and poached eggs (although only if my cheats method of using cling film is allowed). Next up, souffles!


Strangely, when I think of souffles I think of both the divine double baked cheese souffle at La Gavroche (aka heart attack in a ramekin) and the awful looking attempts contestants on Come Dine With Me cook in an effort to impress their rivals. I was hoping my souffles would fall somewhere in the middle of these 2 extremes, although I'd be rather chuffed if it swung slightly in the Michel Roux Jnr direction of course.

This was not the time for experimental new fandangled cooking, I need to go strictly old school to get this right. I consulted Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" which devotes about 15 pages to the subject of souffles, and Stephanie Alexander's "The Cook's Companion". The classic cheese souffle recipes I had were to be made as a large souffle - I wanted to make individual ones, but didn't want to risk playing around with the recipe. In the end I had beautiful goat's cheese to use so settled on the twice baked goat's cheese souffle from Stephanie Alexander. The recipe is below - and they are DI-vine.

Twice-baked goat's cheese souffles (from Stephanie Alexander's "The Cook's Companion")
(serves 6-8)
20 g butter
6-8 ramekins or tea cups of about 150ml capacity each

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C. Melt the butter and grease the ramekins.

60g butter
60g plain flour
350ml warm milk

Melt the butter in a small heavy-based saucepan. Add flour and whisk. Cook over medium heat for 2-3 minutes.

Gradually add the warm milk, whilst whisking. Once the milk has been added, bring to the boil. Keep whisking as the sauce thickens and simmer for 5 minutes.


75g goat's cheese (I used selles sur cher from La Fromagerie, via Hubbub)
1 tablespoon freshly grated parmesan cheese
2 tablespoons finely chopped parsley
4 eggs, separated

Mash the goat's cheese and then whisk into the sauce. Add and whisk through the parmesan and parsley. Once the sauce is smooth, leave to cool for a few minutes.

Fold 3 of the egg yolks into the sauce. Season the sauce.

Whisk the egg whites until creamy and in peaks that are only just stiff.

Fold the egg whites quickly and gently into the cheese sauce.

Divide the mixture between the ramekins. Set the ramekins in a baking tray, and pour boiling water 2/3 up the sides of the ramekins.

Bake the souffles for 18-20 minutes, until they have risen up and feel firm. (It's very exciting!)

Take out of the oven - the souffles will deflate slightly. After a few minutes tip the souffles out of the ramekins. You can prepare them up until this point and then continue when you are ready to serve.

2 cups double cream

Grease a baking tray/casserole dish with butter.

Place the souffles upside down in the baking tray so they are not touching and gently pour the cream over the souffles.

Bake in the oven (still at 180 degrees C) for 15 minutes. The souffles will turn golden and puff up. (This part is even MORE exciting!)

The souffles were amazing. I don't normally give unqualified praise for food I've cooked myself, but wow were these damn good. We ate them with token cherry tomatoes, tossed in balsamic vinegar and basil infused oil.

Lemon myrtle leaf squid with green papaya salad

For Christmas (amongst other goodies) my mum sent me a collection of Australian spices from Herbie's Spices in Rozelle, Sydney. Those in Sydney will be familiar with the spice haven that is Herbie's. Herbie's can send the spices to you overseas - they can package the spices in a special bag with a customs declaration - check out their site or send them an email.

The spices I was given are Bushman's Pepperpot, Aussie Dukkah (called "Ockkah"), roasted and ground Wattleseed, Mulling Spices for mulled wine, and ground Lemon Myrtle Leaf. I started researching to discover what to do with my new spices and found this recipe for crispy prawns with lemon myrtle leaf on Herbie's website - basically you toss prawns in a mix of rice flour, lemon myrtle leaf, smoked paprika, chilli powder and salt, before shallow frying. I decided to use squid instead of prawns and served it with a green papaya salad and sticky rice.

The spices with the squid were quite subtle and a lovely match for the fresh and sassy papaya salad. Next time I'd like to try something where the lemon myrtle leaf is more prominent. The spice has a lovely green colour and a gorgeous, intense lemon smell. I think it is a great match for seafood and chicken - I shall experiment some more!

The green papaya salad was based on this recipe here. Here's what I did:

Green papaya salad
(serves 2 generously, or 4 + as part of several side dishes)
3 cloves of garlic
1 birds eye chilli
3 tablespoons of brown sugar or palm sugar
1/2 tablespoon of roasted peanuts
1/4 lime
Finely chop, or blitz, or pound in a mortar and pestle, the garlic, chilli and peanuts. Add to the sugar and lime and mash together.


Juice of 1 lime
2 tablespoons fish sauce
4-5 cherry tomatoes, quartered
Add these ingredients to the above mix. Bruise/squash the tomatoes a little and mix everything together well.


2 green papaya
1/4-1/8 Chinese cabbage
a handful each of fresh coriander and mint
2 spring onions
Finely slice or shred the papaya. Finely slice the cabbage. Put these in a bowl and add the fresh herbs (I gave mine a rough chop but it's not necessary) and finely sliced spring onions.


Add the dressing mix to the papaya and combine well. Taste and add extra sugar, fish sauce, chilli or lemon juice depending on whether you're lacking in sweetness, saltiness, heat or acidity.


Serve with roasted peanuts and/or cashews.

P.S. I've found a macadamia, chocolate and wattleseed cake recipe, so will be trying that out very soon.

Poached eggs, hollandaise sauce & home-made English muffins

This started as an exercise in ticking another "must cook" item off my list - I was to make hollandaise sauce. However, whilst the sauce was delicious, all my excitement surrounded the making of my own English muffins.

The muffins were surprisingly easy to make. The dough was light and fluffy and the muffins looked exactly like the real thing! The batch made 15 muffins so I gave some to friends, who reported back positively. I'll definitely make them again - maybe fruit ones next time! You can make the muffins a day or so in advance and then toast them when you're ready to eat. The recipe is here (note: I substituted Doves Farm organic self raising wholemeal flour for bread flour, and used baking powder where the recipe asked for baking soda, and semolina where the recipe asked for cornmeal. 2.5 teaspoons of instant yeast is one 7g sachet).

Although I must confess I devoured several of the English muffins slathered with butter and a smear of jam, I did actually make a proper meal from a couple of muffins too. We had toasted muffins, with cos lettuce sauteed in butter (odd, I know, but surprisingly good), poached eggs and hollandaise sauce.


I followed these instructions for the hollandaise from Nigel Slater to the letter and had no problems. The smooth, silky, yellow sauce was delicious.

I am yet to master the art of poaching more than one egg at once. I am very good at swirling the water and poaching one egg, however, as you can't swirl the water for a second egg this is not the most productive method.

I have taken to covering a ramekin with cling film (loosely, so there's a dip in the cling film), greasing the cling film and then breaking the egg into the film, gathering the cling film at the top, enclosing the egg (much like if you were wrapping something in cellophane I guess, and tying a bow at the top) then dropping the package into the water (if my explanation made no sense at all, check out this You Tube video of someone demonstrating it. The guy filming gets a wee bit distracted at one stage, but it's a good demo!)

The result was a dreamy dinner! Gorgeous runny egg yolk, rich buttery hollandaise, fluffy English muffins with a light crunch. Ta-dah!

Friands

Friands are ubiquitous in Australian cafes. However, it wasn't until recently when I saw a friand at Caravan cafe on Exmouth Market, that I noticed their absence in London.

Friands are little oval cakes made with almond meal and caramelised butter. They have a lovely dense, nutty taste and, I think, are the more sophisticated friend of the cupcake. They are originally from France but seem to have become an Antipodean "thing".

My mum used to bake friands (amongst other deliciousness) for Sydney cafes and I used to help her. It feels like I've made friands hundreds of times because my mum was always making them, but (until this batch) I'd never made them myself. I think making them will always make me think of her.

Mum sent me over some of her friand tins and her recipe. She agreed to let me share it with you. (Mum tells me the recipe is based on Maureen Simpson's, but to me, it's entirely my mum's). Here it is:

Friands

(makes 10)

175g butter, 125g almond meal, 250g sifted icing sugar, 55g plain flour, 5 egg whites, 10 friand moulds.

Put butter into a saucepan and simmer gently until it just starts to turn pale golden (but don't burn). Then set aside to cool slightly. This preparation of the butter produces a delicate nutty flavour.

Meanwhile, put the almond meal, sifted icing sugar and flour into a mixing bowl then add the unbeaten egg whites and mix together.

Pour the warm butter through a fine strainer into the mixture and mix through well.

Grease and flour (v important) the friand moulds well then spoon in the batter, filling them no more than three-quarters full.

Place the moulds onto a baking tray then bake in a preheated very hot oven 230C for 5 minutes, then reduce oven to hot 200C for a further 10-15 minutes (you may need to rotate the tray half way through the cooking time).

The friands should rise up.

Turn out onto a cake rack to cool (with your hand covered with a tea towel, up turn each tin into your palm and bang the base with a knife until the friand falls out and into your hand - my mum's tins have very dented bottoms as a result!).

Serve with a light drift of sifted icing sugar over the top. The little cakes will keep fresh for days.

When mixing the ingredients you can always add orange or lemon rind, blueberries, raspberries, banana and poppy seed, substitute some plain flour for cocoa - the possibilities are endless.

Thanks mum!

Steak tartare with chips

Over Christmas I started to compile a list of dishes I should have made by now but haven't. On the list was steak tartare. Earlier in the week I was lucky enough to be the recipient of someone's re-gifting - Nicola of The Shed Likes Food was given two copies of the book "Cured: salted * spiced * dried * smoked * potted * pickled * raw" by Lindy Wildsmith and Nicola gave her extra copy to me with the wishes "may my surplus present bring you culinary joy". And so it was to be that I first found culinary joy with steak tartare in the "Raw" chapter of the book.
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I decided that I could only tick "steak tartare" off my list in good faith if I had finely chopped the beef myself, instead of getting the butcher to mince it. I found a lovely rump steak from Northfields Farm at Broadway Market, sharpened my knife and went to work. I should just note at this stage, that if you're similarly inclined, don't prepare this for more than 2 people unless you're willing to devote hours to chopping meat.
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Clearly, if you're going to prepare your own beef, it seems wrong to then just crack open a jar of bought mayonnaise. What would people say? So, it being a lazy Saturday afternoon, I made my own mayonnaise. My tip is to have plans for roasting a chicken and making sandwiches the next day, because it's hard to justify making a pot of your own mayo when you only use a few tablespoons for the steak tartare.
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The dinner was looking far too healthy and carb-free at this point, so I was forced to make crispy, hot chips to compensate.
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The result was a gorgeous dinner, which felt deceptively indulgent. The prep can be time consuming, or it can not be - it's up to you.
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Enjoy!
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Steak tartare
("Cured" by Lindy Wildsmith)
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I made the recipe to serve 2.
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200g-300g minced or very finely chopped sirloin or fillet of beef (I used about 300g of delicious rump steak which was a bit too much for Y & I, but if you're feeding a bloke, go ahead. It goes without saying that you should buy the best local beef you can afford)

1/2 brown onion, finely chopped
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2-3 teaspoons of olive oil
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1/4-1/2 teaspoon of Tabasco sauce
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1/2 teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce
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2 tablespoons of finely chopped flat leaf parsley
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to go with:
2 free range egg yolks
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cocktail gherkins/pickled cucumbers, chopped
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1 tablespoon salted capers, rinsed & chopped
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2-3 tablespoons of mayonnaise (I made my own but you can buy a good quality one instead. Here are some recipes - I made mine with olive oil.)
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method:
Using your hands, mix the meat, onion, olive oil, Tabasco, Worcestershire sauce and parsley well and season with salt & pepper.

To serve create a ball/patty from half the meat and place on a serving plate. Make a slight indentation in the top of each patty and place the egg yolk in it.

Serve with the garnishes - mayonnaise, gherkins, capers. To eat, mix the meat with the garnishes as you like. I served mine with hot chips. As this steak tartare is served at room temperature, you can have it ready to go and fry your chips at the last minute.

Hot Chips
I used 3 large potatoes (Kind Edward or Maris Piper) for 2 people as there is quite a lot of wastage if you want nice square cut chips.
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Slice the potato into wedges, place in a saucepan, cover with cold water and add salt.
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Bring the water to the boil and cook the potato until the chips become fluffy and some start to fall apart a little.

Drain the chips and allow them to dry a little.
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Heat vegetable/sunflower/canola oil in a large frying pan. You'll probably need a litre bottle of oil. There are recipes that give you the correct temperature for the oil, but I just dip the end of a chip in the oil and see if it starts sizzling. If not, wait a bit longer for the oil to get hotter and test it again.

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I cooked my chips in two batches. Using a slotted spoon you can tell when they're done because they look golden and delicious and, well, good enough to eat!

Drain on paper towel and salt.

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I served my chips in cones made from magazine pages. My life wouldn't be worth living if I didn't acknolwedge that I got this idea from my best friend in New York - we stayed with Mel & her husband at Christmas and at Christmas lunch Mel prepared crispy curly kale with sea salt & lemon zest, served in brown paper cones.

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P.S. Save your egg whites from the tartare & the mayo, as I've got a recipe for little friand cakes coming up!

A few photos from gingerbread supper club (and then I promise not to mention gingerbread ever again)

I know, I know, this blog has been all about gingerbread recently - but I did promise to post photos from our actual gingerbread supper club. I've tried to post a photo of everyone's house. If you'd like to see more photos of the 2 days and the food served, or if you'd just like to find out about future similar events, check out the Facebook page set up for LexEat & The Shed Likes Food, called Lex Shed Supper Club. We'd love to be your friend!