Nut Crusted, Twice Baked, Cheddar and Chive Soufflé

Nut Crusted, Twice Baked, Cheddar and Chive Soufflé

A few years ago, I had a bash at soufflé making. If memory serves me well, it was a goat’s cheese with spinach recipe outlined on a reputable supermarket’s recipe card. There is something dreamy about sinking your teeth into a big cheesy puff, isn’t there? I used a large ramekin dish to bake the soufflé and despite following the recipe to the letter, I achieved a lovely rise and a crusty top, but an uncooked sludge in the centre! What a disappointment and what a waste! Not sure what the problem was, oven temperature? Size of ramekin dish? Well ever since then, whenever I make soufflés, it tends to be the smaller and twice baked variety. Foolproof recipe? Well, to the extent you pretty much know what you are getting at the end of baking..I would say so.

I’ve previously referred to my love of cheese before.  I think for savoury soufflés, there has to have an element of cheese in the recipe. It works so well. I like the combination of tangy cheddar and chive as the strong mature notes of the cheese stands up to the onion-like flavouring of the chive. I had thought about using gruyère but was worried that the strong chive may overpower the sweet nuttiness of this cheese.

To add a futher texture dimension to the dish, I added a hazelnut and breadcrumb crust and have adapted this Epicurious recipe. Refer to this post for an easy way of removing hazelnut shells.

This dish works well as a starter or a lunch dish, served with salad and slices of baguette. It’s also ideal for preparing at dinner parties as you can part bake the souffles the day before.

Works well with some salad leaves and a vinaigrette dressing

Print Nut Crusted, Twice Baked, Cheddar and Chive Soufflé

Prep Time: 35 minutes

Cook Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour, 5 minutes

Serving Size: Serves 8 for Starter

A good recipe to give you confidence in making soufflés. Perfect for starters, lunches and ideal for a dinner party menu.

Ingredients

• 3/4 of a slice of wholemeal or brown bread in the form of dry breadcrumbs
• 3 tbsp of hazelnuts, toasted and finely chopped
• 100 ml of milk (I used low-fat milk)
• 2 tbsp of butter and 1 tbsp (melted) for coating ramekins
• 2 tbsp of plain flour
• 160g of mature cheddar cheese, grated
• A generous bunch of chives, chopped
• 1 large egg yolk
• 4 large egg whites
• 1 tbsp fresh lemon juice
• Pinch of salt

Instructions

1. Pre-heat oven to 180ºC
2. Mix together the chopped hazelnuts and dry breadcrumbs in a bowl.
3. Coat melted butter on each of the 8 ramekin dishes (capacity 125ml). Place the breadcrumb and nut mixture on each of the ramekin dishes; on the base and all round the sides. The melted butter should act like an adhesive holding the mixture in place.
4. Transfer the ramekin dishes to a metal baking tray.
5. Boil a kettle of water.
6. In a saucepan, heat the milk and turn off the heat when the boiling point is reached.
7. In another pan, melt the butter and then gradually add the flour until all is dissolved and a pale golden colour is achieved.
8. Gradually, whisk the milk in, turning up the heat until the boiling point is reached.
9. Remove this mixture from the heat. This step is important as it will avoid the scrambled egg effect.
10. To the mixture, add 80g of grated cheese, the egg yolk and half of the chopped chives. Whisk together and then allow to cool slightly.
11. Meanwhile, prepare the egg whites. To a glass or plastic bowl, add the egg whites, lemon juice and salt. Use a hand held blender/mixer to beat the egg whites until stiff.
12. Fold 1/4 of the egg whites into the cheese mixture to loosen it and then add the remaining egg white mixture remembering to fold all the way.
13. Divide half of the mixture among the ramekin dishes and sprinkle the remaining grated cheese and chives on top.
14. Top with the remaining soufflé mixture.
15. Pour the water from the kettle into the baking tray until it reaches half the height of the ramekin dish.
16. Place in the oven and bake between for around 15 minutes or until a golden brown colour is achieved on each ramekin dish. The soufflés should have risen during the baking process.
17. Leave for about 15 minutes to cool down.
18. Remove the soufflés from the water.
19. Prepare a section of greaseproof paper.
20. Run a small knife round the inside edges of the ramekin dishes and turn them upside down onto the greaseproof paper. If looking to bake straight away, place back in the oven and bake for a further 8-10 minutes at 180ºC.
21. Otherwise, cool down completely, cover the soufflés, refrigerate overnight and bake for 10 minutes the next day.

Notes

This may seem a bit fiddly but if you break down the steps and leave the second bake until the next day, most of the work is already done! Make sure that all of the preparation is done before you cook/bake.

Schema/Recipe SEO Data Markup by ZipList Recipe Plugin2.2http://howtobeagourmand.com/nut-crusted-twice-baked-cheddar-and-chive-souffle/Unless otherwise stated, text and photographs © 2011 How to be Gourmand. All Rights Reserved. Kindly request permission from the author to copy or reproduce elements of this blog.

I would say the only tricky part is the timing in that you have to work pretty quickly to fold in the beaten egg whites into the roux-like mixture and not lose any of the air you have worked so hard to achieve in the previous steps. The acidity in lemon juice allows more air into the egg whites effectively changing the shape or “denaturing” the protein so always remember to add some lemon juice to the mixing bowl when whisking egg whites.

Have you had any disasters with soufflés before? I’d love to hear about them in the comments below!

Like How to be a Gourmand on Facebookfollow

I’m entering this post into the One Ingredient Challenge whose theme this month is cheese. The challenge is owned by Laura over at How to Cook Good Food and Nazima over at Franglais Kitchen and is hosted this month by Nazima.