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.
I have to compliment Dave and Linda, their explanation and pictures were great, and a nouveau souffle baker would be able to follow their directions easily.
I have made souffles before when I was younger and trying to learn about French cooking. Souffles were considered very exotic, so of course I wanted to make some. My early attempts all turned out, and chocolate was the one I remember making. However, since I have mot made many since, I guess that although they are interesting, souffles are not at the top of my extensive food loving list.
For this challenge I wanted to try a seafood souffle, inspired by some of the ones I saw in the Daring Cooks posts. I decided to look through my several French cookbooks, and guess what, there were very few souffle recipes in them. Finally I went to my foundational French cookbook, Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and of course she has a wonderful section that thoroughly explains souffles and gives a generic recipe and variations. So, I ended up using her recipe but using cornstarch and buckwheat flour to make it gluten free. For the additions I used 3/4 cup of canned crab (ok ok for purists, it was what I had in the cupboard!) and about 1/4 cup of chopped up marinated artichokes. I spiced it with a tsp of Dijon mustard, and some fresh grated nutmeg (see, I am not a cooking Cretin, I did use fresh grated nutmeg!). As you can see from the picture, all the sizes of souffles rose to the occasion, and watching them in the oven was the best part of the cooking entertainment experience. The souffle tasted delicious and had a delicate texture and good flavour (ok I have to admit fresh crab would have been better.)
The other souffle memory I do have is that my mother often made a family favourite dessert called lemon pudding. Well guess what, turns out it was a souffle and we all loved it. I think one time my brother wanted a whole batch of lemon souffle for himself on his birthday. If you want a souffle recipe they are on the Daring Cooks website now.
