Makes 2 in individual ‘soufflé’ dishes.
Drop of EVO
1 medium potato, peeled & cubed
1 very small onion, finely chopped
2 thin slices of guanciale, very finely chopped
2 eggs, beaten
drop of milk
Lump – about 75g grated Parmigiano
½ tomino, cubed (small)
Bit of salt and fresh ground white pepper
Little melted butter.
For sauce – a little béchamel sauce and ½ tomino. Seasoning.
What to do …
Heat oven to 200°C
Boil, drain and mash potato.
In meantime, coat a couple of individual ‘soufflé’ dishes with melted butter and put in fridge to cool.
Heat a drop of EVO in a saucepan or frying pan and gently fry the onion and guanciale until the onion is soft and the guanciale translucent.
Stir to stop browning.
Add this mix to the mashed potato. Mix.
Add beaten egg. Mix.
Add little drop of milk. Mix.
Add nearly all Parmigiano saving some for topping. Mix.
When the oven is up to heat, add ½ dish of mix and add ½ the tomino cubes.
Add next ½ sformato mix and top with the rest of the tomino cubes and sprinkle with the last of the Parmigiano.
Put in the centre of the oven for about 15 to 20 minutes.
When the sformato has risen above the level of the dish and you can see the cheese has gone golden brown, it’s done. Try not to overdo it, otherwise it’ll be dry.
While the sformato is in the oven, make a quick and thick white sauce (béchamel) and add the other half of the tomino – also cubed and stir over a medium heat until melted. Add some white freshly ground pepper.
Kate’s Roasted Aubergine Soufflé
Ingredients:
300g aubergines
3 garlic cloves
2 tbsp olive oil
Dried rosemary and thyme
20g flour
20g butter
200 ml milk
small onion
cloves
cinnamon
nutmeg
65g tuma cheese plus 10g
20g parmesan plus 10g
2 egg yolks
2/3 egg whites
Breadcrumbs and butter for greasing the dish
Method:
Chop up the aubergines and put into a roasting tin with the garlic, olive oil and herbs. Roast at 200 C for about 50 mins until browned and soft. Whizz into a paste in the liquidiser. Set aside. (The quantities given will make too much – there’s enough paste here to make 3 two-person soufflés, or 2 soufflés and a lush vegetable pate for spreading on crostini …)
Make a beurre manié by mashing the flour and butter together. Put back into the fridge to chill. Heat the milk, onion and spices to boiling point, then simmer for 5 mins. Strain. Put back on the heat and add the beurre manié a tsp at a time, whisking constantly, until you get a thick sauce. Leave to cool for a few minutes.
Grate the 65g tuma / 20g parmesan. Separate the eggs. Whisk the egg yolks and the cheese into the white sauce, along with two-thirds of the aubergine paste. Taste for seasoning, then set aside.
Butter the soufflé dish with upward strokes (I forgot to do this. Apparently it has a bearing on the rise, so will try it next time), then coat with breadcrumbs. Put in the fridge to chill.
Heat the oven to 200 C.
Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks. (I used two in this recipe, but I think 3 would have been better.)
Split the aubergine base into two equal portions. Set one aside for the next soufflé. Fold the egg whites into the other, a third at a time.
Spoon half the soufflé mix into the dish. Sprinkle over the 10g tuma. Add the rest of the soufflé mix. Sprinkle over the parmesan. (I put both cheeses on top of the soufflé on this attempt, but think the tuma would be better in the middle.) Put straight into the oven and drop the temperature immediately to 190 C. Bake for 25-30 minutes.
Dwight’s Cheese and Spinach Souffle
This group pushes me to try new stuff like this week’s entry:
For the spinach, sauté 2tbsp of diced guanciale and 2 tbsp of diced red onions in a small amt. of olive oil over medium heat until the onions are tender and add spinach, cooking until soft.
Pre-heat oven to 350°
Butter and flour a large baking dish.
Prepare your basic roux. (Ie. melt butter in a pan, add flour and cook—whisking constantly—until it just begins to turn a light brown color.)
Heat milk (in microwave) until hot, but not boiling.
Add a small amount of roux into the milk and mix, then add the milk mixture back into the roux.
Reduce heat. Whisk a small amount of this hot sauce mixture into the egg yolks, then add the yolks back into the sauce, whisking well.
Reduce heat to the lowest setting and keep the sause only warm enough to continue melting cheesese or other items.
Slowly add cheese and mix until it is melted into the sauce.
Now use a mixer at medium or high speed to beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until they are “stiff but not dry”.
Add 1/4 of the egg white to the sauce and mix.
FOLD the sauce into the egg whites. FOLD does not mean mix! This is important: you just barely mix the two together. It is perfectly okay that you see bits of white. The mixture does not need to be homogenous.
Place mixture in baking dish and bake for 30-35 minutes.
Adapted from Murray’s homepage recipe for 2 egg soufflé
Grazia’s Dark Chocolate Souffle with an Espresso Heart
Grazia’s recipe can be found on her blog:
Temple’s Sformatini di zucchine e ricotta con coulis di pomodori
Ingredients:
1-2 medium zucchine chiare
300g ricotta
50g diced cooked ham
¼ cup grated parmesan
1 egg
1tbsp flour
Olive oil
S&P
For the coulis:
canned tomatoes
Olive oil
S&P
Using a vegetable peeler or a mandolin, slice the raw zucchini very thinly—they should be pretty pliable. In a bowl, mix all the other ingredients evenly.
Lightly oil 4 ramekins and carefully drape the zucchini slices so there is a bit of overhang. Use about 3-4 slices per ramekin to almost cover the bottom and sides. Fill with the ricotta mixture up to the top and gently fold the “tails” over the top.
Bake in a 200° oven for about 30 minutes, until the sformati have puffed up and any ricotta showing is golden.
Meanwhile make the coulis: press the canned tomatoes through a sieve using the back of a spoon, so you have just thin tomato puree (do not substitute paste). Cook over a low heat with a little oil and S&P until slightly thickened, enough to coat a spoon generously.
Unmold the sformatini onto plates and pour a little coulis over them. Serve hot.
Marina’s Cheese and Sweetcorn Souffle
3 tablespoons of butter.
3 tablespoons of flour
3/4 cup milk
1 cup cheese (grated. I used Cheddar)
salt and pepper. Make this into a cheese white sauce.
3 eggs. separated
1 small tin Corn
Separate 3 eggs and beat the egg whites till stiff but not too much.
Add 1 tin of sweet corn.
Mix the sweetcorn into the white sauce. Take pan off the stove and cool slightly and add the beaten egg yolks. Then FOLD in the egg white and pour into buttered floured dish.
Bake at 210 for 30 minutes.
Kim’s Salmon with a touch of Onion
Layers are grilled onion, hard boiled egg, artichoke puree with walnuts, potatoes, salmon, potatoes.
Cook the onions, do the artichoke puree with walnuts, cook the potatoes till fork tender, layer onions first, pressing down after each layer then egg slices, then artichoke puree, then potatoes, then add the fresh salmon in pieces, then potatoes on top.
Put into a 200 degree oven for about 40 minutes.
Amy’s Sformato di Pappardelle al ragu di cinghiale
I started with making my ragu the day before..
700 grams of polpa di cinghiale.(wild boar meat) I had macinato cause I like it better that way but you can also chop it into tiny cubes
2 sausages(cinta senese)
2 carrots
3 celery stalks
1 large onion
a handful of fresh parsley
juniper berries…q.b.
doppio conc. tomato paste(2 tbls)
2 pelati (peeled tomatoes from can)
salt q.b.
pepper q.b.
a full glass of red wine
normally I would also put black olives in but I thought they wouldn’t help the sformato form so I left them out
Just as you would make a normal ragu or bolognese sauce
chop up your carrots, celery, onion, parsley and put them in a large pot with olive oil to brown but don’t let them get too brown!
after that I push the sausage out of its skin or whatever that is called and put it in with the celery, carrots, onion etc
I brown it for about 2 minutes then add the wild boar meat and stir it about 2 minutes and then a glass of red wine maybe even a glass and a quarter and let it cook until wine evaporates
next I add 2 large spoonfuls of double concentrated tomato paste and mix
then 2 pelati, (squished by hand or fork before putting them in the pot)
next a handful or more of juniper berries
mix
add your salt and pepper
mix
now adding water to make ragu depends on what kind of pot you have, I have a large deep pot so add water up to the last 1/4 of the pot..
bring the sauce to a boil when it boils I move it to a small burner and partially covered for about 2 and 1/2 hours and stirring often
cooking times can vary, usually tuscan ragu is very very thick and not very saucy..depends on what you like
I also think making ragu the night before eating eat gives it a better flavour
I made pappardelle for 8, probably close to 500 grams
8 eggs, 1 kg of flour a pinch of salt
after you have made the rolled and stretched the sfoglia cut in wide strips of about 1,5 cm
Cook the pappardelle al dente and season with sauce and parmigiano
next I oiled the pan and put dusted it with bread crumbs
I cut up 250 grams of smoked provolone and 1 mozzarella and cut into cubes 200 grams up ham
I mixed these together with the papparedelle
Next using my hands I squished the pappardelle and all the stuff into the pan and packed it hard until it was full up to the top
I grated some pecorino and tons of parmigiano and then put a light layer of ragu on top
baked in 180 preheated oven for 35 minutes
eat!
Yael’s Guilt free Clafoutis
2 large eggs
3 tbsp flour
1.5 tbsp ground almonds
3 tsbp sugar
4 medium plums
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
Few drops of almond essence
Pinch nutmeg
Serves 4 to 6
Calories about 150 per portion.
Can be made as deep individual servings or as a large shallower dish.
Stone and cut the plums into small pieces (for individual portions) or slices/halves for a large serving.
Warm the plums and spices in a pan with a tbsp water. Add extra sugar if you like things sweet or the plums are aspro.
Beat egg whites to soft peak stage meanwhile make a batter with the egg yolks, flour, ground almonds, sugar, vanilla and almond essence.
Line the bottom of dish/es with the slightly stewed fruit.
Fold the egg whites into the batter, you don’t need to be super gentle just don’t knock out all the air.
Spoon batter mixture over the fruit and bake at 180c for about 15 minutes.
Cool slightly and dust with icing sugar, great served with fat free Greek yoghurt and maybe a little honey.
Catherine’s Roasted pepper and feta flan
I was inspired by the local meze of feta-stuffed peppers.
9 small peppers, 6 red and 3 yellow (here in Greece they are small; perhaps 4 bell peppers if they are large; 3 red and 1 yellow)
1/4 large red onion
1 small clove garlic
1 tbs EVO
150 g feta
2 tbs grated sharp pecorino (left over, so I figured I’d toss it in, but mine was Greek)
4 eggs
pinch of oregano
salt
pepper
THIN BECHAMEL:
1 tbs butter
1 1/2 tbs flour
200 ml milk
salt
pepper
butter and breadcrumbs for the casserole
Garnish: parsley
Roast the peppers under the grill (it took me about 45 min, being careful to turn them over). Skin the peppers and remove the seeds. Put the peppers in a bowl and let them stew in their juice.
Chop the onion and crush the garlic; sauté over very low heat in the oil and set aside.
Preheat oven to 150°C.
Prepare your béchamel. (If you need instructions on how to make béchamel, you shoud probably stop here.)
For those of you who DO know how to make béchamel, keep stirring (with your right or left hand; your choice).
Meanwhile, with your available hand, mash the feta with a fork and stir in the eggs. Whirl with a minipimer. Add the peppers with their juice, and the sautéed onion, and mix again with the mini-pimer. Salt and pepper to taste (not much salt, as feta tends to be salty). Add the grated pecorino.
Stir in the béchamel.
Grease a casserole with butter and dust with breadcrumbs.
Pour the mixture into the casserole and bake for around 50 min. If you insert a knife and it comes out clean, it’s done.
Sprinkle some fresh parsley over the top and serve.
Marino totally loved it, and he’s a hard sell.
Cooking at Home for Fun 