Saturday, January 18, 2003

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Rayne for the kind of donation toward the buying of fish, which we used Friday for the preparation of Souffle de Poisson, a “fish soufflé from the haute cuisine.”  And I gotta tell ya, with this recipe, you sure do get the bang for your haute.  This is some good, good, good stuff. You start by grinding up half of a ¾ pound filet of flounder in a blender.  Grind isn’t really the right word.  “Whip into sticky shreds” would be more accurate, though not, perhaps, as elegant.  The rest of the fish you put in a pan, sprinkle with minced shallots, dot with butter, and pour vermouth and water over to barely cover.  You get it just to the simmer, then put a round of buttered wax paper over it and poach in the oven for a few minutes – for God’s sake don’t leave it in for the 8 minutes Julia suggests.  I left it in for six and it was already overdone.  Set aside the fish, strain the cooking juice, and boil it down to a quarter cup, at which point it’ll be supercharged fish-n-vermouth sludge.  This you’ll use for the sauce mousseline sabayon a bit later on.  Then in another pan – this is another recipe that creates a lot of dirty dishes  (“I am Jack’s complete lack of surprise…” – Eric) – roux up some butter and flour, then, off heat, beat in boiling milk (said milk boiling in yet another pan, unless you’re one of those blessed souls with a microwave), salt, pepper, and the ground fish.  Boil that for a couple of minutes.  Off heat, stir in four egg yolks, one at a time. Beat five egg whites with some salt (and don’t feed that extra egg yolk to your cats, you’ll need it later) until stiff.  Stir a fourth of them into the soufflé mixture.  Stir in a third cup grated Swiss cheese.  Fold in the rest of the whites. Pour a third of the mixture into your soufflé mold, which you have cleverly buttered and sprinkled with parmesan cheese beforehand – around the same time you preheated your oven to 400 degrees, in fact.  Lay over this layer half of the poached fish filet, cut into chunks about one & half by half an inch.  Pour in another third soufflé mix, the rest of the fish after that, the last of the mixture after that.  Sprinkle the thing with cheese and bake for half an hour. While that’s doing, make the Sauce Mousseline Sabayon, or as the hubby and I like to call it: “Welcome to Butterdome.  A Size Eight Enters, A Size Ten Leaves.” Start by beating together three egg yolks, a half cup whipping cream, and the ¼ cup fish juice.  Warm over low heat, still beating, until it thickens a bit.  Off heat, beat in one and one half STICKS of butter, a tablespoon at a time.  Season with a bit of salt and pepper, and some lemon juice.  Take out the soufflé.  Serve a wedge of it with the sauce mousseline on top. Hold the Mary Mother of God, and give me Souffle de Poisson avec Sauce Mousseline Sabayon.  Anybody who doesn’t love, and I mean love this would push little ducks in the water.  (I’m talkin’ to you, Bekkah, you well-housed pesca-phobe, you….)  It’s Saturday morning.  Eric has left to go to Providence, RI for the day – don’t ask – and left me with the dishes, which I can’t even wash because the pipes have frozen solid. Ain’t that a kick in the head.  And on a completely unrelated note, because it’s been awhile since we’ve had any good Bush bashing around here – I just heard that Georgie W. was the only applicant in the decade he went to college that was admitted to Harvard Business school at the same time he was rejected at UT Law School.  I love that shit. 11:29:24 AM    comment []