Daring Cooks Challenge: The Magical Soufflé

Dave and Linda from Monkeyshines in the Kitchen chose Soufflés as our November 2010 Daring Cooks’ Challenge! Dave and Linda provided two of their own delicious recipes plus a sinfully decadent chocolate soufflé recipe adapted from Gordon Ramsay’s recipe found at the BBC Good Food website.

The soufflé is an item that is found in the ovens of experienced pastry chefs. It inspires awe from diners and fear from the novice home baker. This was my first attempt at a soufflé. Baking in the Good Cook Doris kitchen is usually biscuits, breads, and the occasional batch of cookies. I was excited to try something new and searched for a recipe that caught my fancy. I settled on a coffee soufflé, mainly because I wanted to make individual servings in my coffee mugs. Now doesn’t that sound fancy?

Using a recipe I found at Cook Almost Anything I set out to create a beautiful, flavorful soufflé. I read through the Daring Cooks challenge tips, and made sure to prepare all my ingredients carefully. I should point out that the recipe is in grams. Without a high tech scale, that meant some mathematics conversions and a few best guess estimates on amounts.

With everything out and ready, I got to work. First up was making the custard. I had set aside some coffee from my morning pot and added that to the milk and sugar to create the liquid. After melting the butter and whisking in cornstarch to thicken, I added in the coffee flavored milk and set it aside to cook and thicken. I successfully added in the egg yolks without scrambling them. Success #1!

The last time I tried to whip egg whites I ended up with bowl of bubbly liquid egg whites. I made sure to follow all the tips this time – clean bowl, room temperature egg whites, and high speed mixing. After just a few minutes I had soft peaks! Success #2!

At this point, the recipe called for mixing in ¼ of the egg whites to ‘slacken’ the custard mixture. I probably could have looked that up, but figured I would gently mix them in and it would be okay.

The next step was to gently fold in the remaining egg whites into the slackened custard. I folded as best as I could and until I was satisfied with my effort. Because my coffee cups were differently shaped than those in the recipe I used, I estimated the amount of soufflé batter to pour in. The recipe said ¾ full and that’s what I did. I filled 2 prepared mugs ¾ full and then spooned the remaining batter into the third mug. I figured it would still rise, it just wouldn’t rise above the rim.

I carefully and delicately placed my soufflé mugs onto the heated baking sheet in the oven. I pulled a stepstool up to the oven and plopped myself down with my phone and camera to watch the soufflé magic happen.

After 10 minutes there was no action. I reset the timer and pressed my face back against the oven door window. 10 more minutes pass…I think I see something starting to happen. The soufflés are rising. And rising. I start to feel great about my first soufflé attempt. I try to take a few pictures, but they don’t come out through the door. So I continue to watch and wait. I see bubbles…and steam…and then it happens. The soufflés really come to life and instead of rising into the sky, they start pouring down the sides. I don’t think this was part of the recipe?

As I sat watching my soufflés bubble over, I just started laughing. Over the last year I’ve developed a new attitude in the kitchen. I find myself taking on more challenging projects inspired by Daring Cooks, personal interest, and inspiration from fellow bloggers. This soufflé challenge illustrated my new philosophy perfectly. I could get really upset and beat myself up for screwing up or I could laugh and appreciate the hilarity and enjoyment in failing at trying something new. I chose #2. Instead of crying over exploded soufflés, I let them continue cooking until the drips down the sides of the mugs looked golden brown and set. I removed my creative interpretation of the soufflé from the oven and proceeded with my photo shoot.

They may not have set and they may not have tasted exactly right, but I successfully whipped egg whites! And I didn’t scramble my yolks! And I had a blast trying something new. And that’s what it’s really about - being confident in your abilities and not being afraid to let your soufflés flop every once in a while.

I dumped them in a baking dish and tried to salvage them.

Local Luxury Dinner Party: Secondo e Contorno

This is the fourth post in the Local Luxury Dinner Party series. The party was part of the Next Food Blog Star competition hosted by Foodbuzz. While I didn't advance in the competition, the party was still fabulous!

The main course for our Local Luxury Dinner Party was inspired by the deliciously simple meal I enjoyed during restaurant week at Sportello. Barbara Lynch’s casual spot served up sirloin with local potatoes and salsa verde.

Sportello Sirloin, August 2010 Restaurant Week

I was in luck; during my shopping trip to the farmers market Stillman’s at the Turkey Farm had NY strip steak. I picked up three steaks – enough for reasonably sized portions for four diners. Atlas Farm had some freshly dug early season potatoes and hard neck garlic. The challenge prompt for the dinner party was “new and exotic tastes” which meant thinking of a unique vegetable for the side. Something green caught my eye at Atlas and I knew it fit the bill! I picked up two heads of Broccoli Romanesco and headed home with my purchases.

Fresh Romanesco at the market

Because this was the third course in the meal, I either needed to cook it all ahead of time or have it all ready to cook while we ate the first two courses. To make things easy I left the potatoes unpeeled and the garlic cloves whole. Because the romanesco looks so stunning whole, that saved some prep time too. As you could see in a photo in the previous antipasti course post, I cooked the steak on the stovetop while the first course was being enjoyed. That gave me time to let the steak rest before slicing. The romanesco steamed while we ate the ravioli. Roasting the potatoes was the easiest part of the meal! I threw the washed and halved potatoes into a baking dish along with the garlic cloves. All they needed was quick toss with olive oil and a little salt. The potatoes went into the oven when the guests arrived and were perfectly roasted when it was time to serve the main course.

To top the steak, I made lime basil butter the night before the party. I harvested the last of my lime basil, finely chopped it and mixed it with unsalted butter. This gave the steak a nice bright flavor component.

With all this photography, the camera battery died right when started this course! We plugged in the battery and switched over to the phone camera for a picture of the completed plate.

The wine paired deliciously with this course (really, the whole meal).

The course was simple, light (for steak & potatoes), and didn’t fill us up completely. Close, but we still had a little room for dessert. Stay tuned for the next post: dessert!

Lime Basil Butter
Makes enough for the meal plus plenty of extra

1 stick of unsalted butter, softened
1 tablespoon finely chopped lime basil

Mix basil and softened butter together
Roll into a log shape
Wrap tightly in wax paper and freeze until ready to serve


Roasted Fingerling Potatoes and Garlic

2-3 pounds fingerling potatoes, washed and cut in half
2 heads of garlic, cloves removed and peeled
Kosher salt
Olive oil

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Place potatoes and garlic in a baking dish
Sprinkle with a generous amount of kosher salt
Pour in enough olive oil to coat potatoes and garlic and toss well
Cover and bake for 30-45 minutes


NY Strip Steak
I can’t remember exactly how I made this! Here’s a general overview.

Sprinkle the steak with kosher salt and let sit for about 15 minutes
Heat a skillet over medium-high heat
Sear steak on both sides and then reduce heat, letting steak cook to desired doneness
Remove from heat and top with slices of herb butter
Tent with foil and let rest for 10-15 minutes before slicing


Broccoli Romanesco

I steamed this in my vegetable steaming pot until just softened. I topped it with a sprinkle of kosher salt and a swirl of extra virgin olive oil.

Cheers!

All the Flavor of Thanksgiving…Not the Way You’d Expect

Before I write my next post in the Local Luxury Dinner Party series, I wanted to share my fun dinner!

I have been working hard to plan meals for the week and get a lot of cooking done on Sundays. This takes away the stress of thinking of something to make every night and frees up more time for homework (well, maybe twitter and some TV watching too). Today when I pulled out my notebook to plan, I decided that I wouldn’t consult any cookbooks. I wanted to be creative and come up with my own ideas for the week.

When we get lazy about planning around here, we end up eating a lot of red meat. I love to cook brisket, burgers, you name it. But for the sake of the hubby’s cholesterol, we’ve decided to have a non-red meat at home month. So that leaves us to decide on some alternative proteins. Since Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, I’ve been craving roasted turkey. When I checked out turkey breasts at Whole Foods last week I almost passed out from sticker shock. $55 for a turkey breast?!? That’s nuts! So we opted for chicken and tofu for our proteins last week.

I still had a hankering for turkey when I started planning today. I went through the ingredients in the fridge first for inspiration and remembered that I had a container of cranberries ready to be turned into sauce. With cranberry sauce in mind, I started daydreaming about Thanksgiving dinner. To me that means lots of my grandmother’s dressing (aka stuffing) with a little turkey and fixings. I figured that turkey breast would still be pricey, so I arrived on the idea of turkey + stuffing meatballs served with cranberry sauce. I picked up some pre-made stuffing mix (sacrilegious in my family), a pound of ground white meat turkey, and fresh celery. Those three ingredients set me back about $12. Added in with the ingredients I had at home, this meal didn’t break the bank. For the two of us, this will be two meals.

I used a cranberry sauce recipe from the last issue of Gourmet Magazine. The sauce, a mix of cranberries and apples, was a hit at our holiday celebration last year. I have to confess, I made mashed potatoes from a box to serve on the side. I had the box leftover from when I made a King Arthur recipe calling for instant mashed potatoes. I shouldn’t feel bad about boxed potatoes, but I usually write about local, fresh, and homemade!

The verdict on the meal? Delicious! I will definitely be making this again. Next time I’ll use a little more stuffing and add in extra poultry seasoning for a little more flavor. I think it would be fun to make the meat mixture into patty shapes and serve them on fresh kaiser rolls with cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes. Or maybe potato rolls…. So many possibilities!

I had to laugh, as I sat down to eat I pulled out the latest Saveur to peruse. In reference to my dinner, I had to make an edit to the cover:

Thanksgiving Meatballs served with fresh cranberry sauce with apple (and instant mashed potatoes)
Makes 12 2” meatballs

1/2 cup milk
1 egg
1 cup stuffing mix + a little extra (I used Whole Foods chicken flavor)
1/3 cup finely diced celery
1 lb. ground white meat turkey breast

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees and line a baking sheet with foil (I used cooking spray on the foil to prevent sticking)
Mix egg and milk together in a large bowl
Add in celery and 1 cup stuffing and mix, making sure to moisten the stuffing
Add in turkey and mix using your hands, be careful not to over mix (you’ll end up with dense meatballs)
If the mixture is too wet, add in a little more stuffing
Form into 2 inch balls and place on the greased baking sheet
Bake for 20-25 minutes, turning over halfway through the cooking time

Cranberry Sauce with Apple
Adapted from Gourmet Magazine, November 2009

16 oz. fresh cranberries, washed
1-2 apples (I used Fortune apples), peeled, cored, and diced into 1/2 in cubes
1 cup sugar
1 cup water

Combine water, sugar, cranberries, and diced apples in a medium saucepan
Bring to a boil over medium-high heat
Cook over medium-high heat for 15-20 minutes, stirring constantly
The cranberries will burst and the mixture will begin to thicken (like cranberry sauce!)
You can serve immediately with the meatballs, or to make a nice presentation, line a loaf pan with plastic wrap and spray the plastic wrap with cooking spray
Spoon the sauce into the loaf pan, cover with the plastic wrap and chill for at least 3 hours
Invert the loaf pan onto the plate and slice for serving

Instant Mashed Potatoes
Follow the directions, and if you really want to be gourmet, follow the microwave directions. I did use delicious Kerry Gold butter from Ireland to add flavor.

Serve and enjoy! I’m looking forward to leftovers tomorrow.

Summary:
Prep time: 15-20 minutes
Cook time: 30 minutes total (20 minutes meatballs, 15 minutes cranberry sauce, 2 minutes mashed potatoes)
Mixing bowls, spatulas, baking sheet, measuring cups, medium saucepan, microwave safe bowl, serving utensils and plates