French Provincial Cooking (45 page)

When the time comes to make the soufflé, preheat the oven to Gas No. 6, 400 deg. F. Have the shelf placed fairly low in the oven, and a baking sheet on the shelf. Butter a 1
-pint soufflé dish (the size is important).

Whisk the whites of the eggs, plus one extra, in a large, scrupulously dry and clean bowl, until they will stand in peaks on the whisk and look very creamy. Tip half the whites on top of the basic mixture. With a palette knife cut them into it, slowly rotating the bowl with your left hand, lifting rather than stirring the whole mass. Add the remainder of the whites in the same way. All this should take only a few seconds and as you pour the whole mixture, without delay, into the dish, it should look very bubbly and spongy, but if the whites have been over-beaten or rammed into the main mixture with a heavy hand, it will already begin to look flat. With the palette knife, mark a deep circle an inch or so from the edge, so that the soufflé will come out with a cottage-loaf look to the top. Put it instantly into the oven.

As to timing, it depends so much upon the size and type of both the oven and the dish that it is misleading to give precise details. I can only say, as a general guide, that in the oven of a representative domestic gas cooker, this soufflé is perfectly cooked at No. 6 in 23 to 25 minutes.

1 lb. courgettes, 2 whole eggs and 2 extra whites, 5 tablespoons of grated Gruyère cheese (1
to 2 oz.), a béchamel sauce made from 1 oz. butter, 2 tablespoons of flour and a scant
pint of warmed milk, the whole well seasoned with pepper but not too much salt until after the cheese has been added.

Prepare the courgettes as explained on page 253, and when they have been salted and drained, cook them in a heavy saucepan with a ladle of water until they are quite soft and the liquid evaporated. If they dry up before they are soft add more water, but only a very little, because the object of this operation is to extract the moisture from the vegetables, not to add more. Sieve them and stir the resulting purée into the prepared béchamel. Add the cheese; then, off the fire, the well-beaten yolks. Leave to cool before folding in the whites, beaten until they stand in peaks. Turn into miniature buttered soufflé dishes, filling them within half an inch of the top. Stand them in a baking tin containing water, cook in a pre-heated, moderate oven, Gas No. 4, 355 deg. F., for approximately 23 minutes. They should be well risen but still creamy in the centre. These quantities fill 6 little dishes of about 4 oz. capacity.

I first had these little soufflés at a lorry drivers’ restaurant about three miles from the Pont du Gard. They came after cooked ham and cold vegetables served with a powerful
aïoli
, and were followed by a
bœuf à la gardiane
garnished with heart-shaped croûtons of fried bread. Then came a home-made ice with home-made almond
tuiles
. After which the local
marc
from Châteauneuf du Pape was a welcome digestive. It was not, I must add, the set meal of the café, but had been specially prepared for us by the proprietor, a Marseillais, at quite short notice. He had, I think, invented these delicious little soufflés himself.

To make a courgette soufflé in one large dish instead of several miniature ones, prepare the mixture as described above. Turn into a buttered soufflé dish of 1
to 1
pints capacity. The dish should be full almost to the top. Stand it in a baking tin filled with water, sprinkle the top with grated cheese, and cook in the centre of a preheated oven, Gas No. 4, 355 deg. F., for 40 to 45 minutes. Alternative timing is 30 minutes at gas No. 7, 440 deg. F.

Three people can easily dispose of this size soufflé. For six, double all the quantities exactly and make two soufflés rather than one huge one.

Except for the fact that it contains cheese, this has very little in common with the well-known Swiss fondue. The recipe is from an old collection of Burgundian recipes and came from the Restaurant de la Cloche in Dijon. I give it in half quantities though, for the final operation of cooking and frying the little fondues is a tricky one at first and it is best to get it right in a small amount to start with. It makes a first course luncheon dish of great charm.

The ingredients are 2 oz. each of butter and flour,
pint of milk, 1
oz. each of grated Gruyère and Parmesan, the yolks of 3 eggs, salt, pepper, nutmeg. For the final operation, a whole egg, approximately 2
oz. of breadcrumbs and a mixture of butter and oil for frying.

First make a thick basic sauce by melting the butter in a heavy saucepan, then stir in the flour. When the two have amalgamated, add, about a third at a time, the heated milk, and stir thoroughly until smooth, thick, and coming away from the sides of the pan. Now add the grated cheese, salt, a plentiful seasoning of freshly-milled pepper and a grating of nutmeg. The mixture should be rather highly seasoned. Lastly, add the beaten yolks and stir, away from the fire, until the mixture is quite smooth. Turn it into a small baking tin, very lightly oiled, in a layer about half an inch thick. Put in a cold place and leave until next day.

With a knife dipped in cold water, mark out the mixture into rectangles about 1
× 2
inches. There will be sixteen pieces. Cut them through, then separate them with a palette knife. Have ready on one large plate the beaten egg and on another the very fine, pale golden breadcrumbs. Coat each square first with the egg and then with the breadcrumbs, taking care to cover sides as well as top and bottom. Use a palette knife for the coating operations which can all be done a little time before the meal. When the time comes to cook them, heat about 2 oz. of butter (clarified if possible) and 2 tablespoons of oil. Fry half the little fondues in this, turning them over once or twice until they are golden and you see the mixture just beginning to spread at the sides. Take them out with a slice, keep them hot in a gentle oven while the second batch is fried, then serve quickly. This quantity will be enough for three. To make clarified butter, see page 72.