Monday, January 27, 2003

I would like to begin by saying I don’t think I got across yesterday how very, very good Daube de Boeuf a la Provencale is.  Beef stew with anchovy paste was just about the best beef stew I ever did have, and I hope to have it many more time before I die.   Enough said. Souffle aux Crevettes, on the other hand, as a bit of a disappointment.  I don’t know what it was.  Maybe it was just because I was coming off the Daube de Boeuf a la Provencale; I don’t know.  Everything went right, pretty much  -- mostly I think that in my deepest soul I’m just not a soufflé person. Souffle aux Crevettes is just like the fish soufflé I made last week, except that rather than poaching a flounder filet and laying that in the middle of the soufflé, I put in diced shrimp that’s been cooked in butter and Madeira.  I boiled the Madeira down to syrup around shrimp, and it wound up tasting and smelling quite nice – almost Creole in flavor.  But the problem was this, and I fear it’s a problem with Julia’s recipe.  Because I did not poach a fish, I did not have any fish cooking juices to boil down and use for the mousseline.  I wound up just using more cream, and throwing a little truffle flour in for interest, and you know, melting a stick of butter into it, so it was okay, but not great. Other than the shrimp, the recipe for the soufflé is exactly the same.  Mix together a roux of butter and flour in a saucepan.  Off heat, stir in boiling milk and some flounder ground up in a blender.  Stir in four egg yolks.  Beat five egg whites until stiff and fold them into the mix, along with some swiss cheese.  Build the soufflé the same way I did with the Souffle de Poisson – a third of the soufflé mix, half the shrimp, another third soufflé mix, the other half of the shrimp, last of the soufflé mix, sprinkling of cheese.  Stick in a preheated 400-degree oven, immediately turn the heat down to 375, and bake for half an hour. It was okay, don’t get me wrong.  Souffle with shrimp and a butter sauce ain’t bad.  It just wasn’t inspiring.  The upside was that I made my husband eat soufflé on Superbowl Sunday, which makes me giggle. 7:36:57 AM    comment []