Really Useful Twice Baked Soufflé Recipe

~ Menu ~

Twice Baked Cheddar Soufflé

Cornish Rattler

On Sunday last we went to the Allen Valley to look at the bluebells although, of course, a visit to the pub was on the cards too.  Sadly a busy road runs through the road along the side of the narrow strip of bluebell invested woodland but still all very beautiful and the bluebells were stunning.  

We had a little walk along a track to get a better look at them, there is a footpath through the wood but as we would have had to crush flowers underfoot, so thickly do they grow, we decided just to admire from afar.    We took over 30 pictures none of which to any justice to the wonderfulness of it all.

After standing about in the woods for a while with silly rapturous looks on our faces we sloped off to The St. Kew Inn at, appropriately enough, St. Kew which is one of our absolute favourite pubs. It has a lovely garden full of birdsong,  is next to a big old church and I've heard it does really good food too.  Real man, however, doesn't like eating out so we just had a drink – my first Cornish Rattler of the year, as good as I remember.

When got home it was not much trouble to have ourselves a cheese soufflé; a twice baked soufflé I had prepared (suddenly) the day before.  This is a Seriously Useful Recipe ...

Twice Baked Cheddar Soufflés - makes 6

60g butter plus a bit

60g plain flour

300ml milk

120g grated good strong cheddar

1 level tbsp wholegrain mustard

salt and freshly ground pepper 

3 large eggs

~    Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6.

~    Butter 6 x 200ml ramekins.

~    Melt the butter in a small saucepan.

~    Stir in the flour to form a smooth paste (a roux in fact).

~    Cook over low heat for a minute or so then whisk in the milk.

~    Bring to a boil whisking constantly till you have a thick and smooth sauce.

~    Stir in the mustard, cheddar, salt and pepper and keep stirring till cheese has melted into the sauce.  (Incidentally, if you stop here you have a tasty cheese sauce which will probably just need diluting with a little more milk.)

~   Set aside off the heat whilst dealing with the eggs.

~   Separate the eggs and stir the yolks into the cheese sauce.

~   Whisk the egg whites (making sure the bowl and whisk are utterly, utterly grease free and that there is not the slightest trace of yolk in the whites) till thick and fold into the cheese sauce.

~   Divide between the ramekins.

~   Stand the ramekins in a roasting tin or similar, and carefully pour in enough boiling water to come half way up their sides (this is a bain  marie) and bake till just set and golden – 15-20 minutes.

~   Cool in the ramekins.

~   Run a knife round the edge of each soufflé, turn out and, when completely cold, wrap in cling film and keep in the fridge till needed.

To serve ...

 1 tbsp double cream per soufflé

a little grated mature Cheddar per soufflé

~   Preheat oven to 220ºC/425ºF/200ºC fan/gas 7.

~   Unwrap the soufflés and stand them in a shallow buttered dish.

~   Pour the cream over the top of each soufflés.

~   Sprinkle with grated Cheddar.

~   Bake till risen and the cream and cheese are bubbling – about 10 minutes.  No need for a bain marie on the second cooking. 

We ate them  al fresco!

Wild Garlic - delicious free stuff!

The past few days have been splendid, as you probably know.   Whilst wandering about in the sun I was delighted to find wild garlic. or ramsons as they are more formally called, and picked a few handfuls. 

Here’s a picture of them growing in Padstow woods.

And here’s what I did with my wild garlic …

Penne Pasta in Wild Garlic Alfredo 

This is easy, just add shredded wild garlic to a simple Alfredo Sauce BUT I made it extra yummy.  My real man had a burger (homemade of course, I’m surprised you asked) topped with bacon, red onions and cheddar.  I always finish it in the oven and whilst doing this I crisply fried myself some breadcrumbs in the bacony fat which had bits of caramelised onion in it, thus making a delicious pangratatto!



My meal was seriously delicious (I'd have thought so even if I wasn't such a bighead) and looked like this.

I also puréed some of the leaves together with olive oil, lemon juice and freshly and coarsely ground black pepper and marinated a piece of haddock in this for an hour or so then pan fried it and ate it with our first Jersey Royals of the season.

Lastly I mixed the remaining leaves with some leftover mashed potato and fried up a crispy cake to go with another piece of haddock cooked in bacon fat.  I hope I’ll be alright, re the bacon fat!

News from the future - see here for lots of ideas for using wild garlic.

In Other News

I had a lovely wiggly wander about Padstow; wiggly because I was walking around the hoards of people thronging the small harbour.

I had lunch at The Basement, on a street called Drang, with my friend Carol, she ate mussels ...

... and I had a wonderful Monkfish Madras which was perfect in every way, in fact extra perfect as it had a surprise Onion Bhaji in the centre of it.  With this I drank my first, but certainly not my last, wine from Camel Valley; Bacchus, a fruity white wine which was gorgeous.

Thursday my real man and I spent on the beach at Porthcothan  just laying in the sun, reading, eating a picnic (fairly basic but nice), he spent some time in the sea with his surf ski and we explored the coves and rocky places. 

You know, the Caribbean is lovely but it’s hard to beat a Cornish beach when the weather’s right.  For a start the tide goes out So Far!  About half a mile the other day and the beaches are interesting with caves and rock pools and weathered rock formations.  We had a lovely time and I’m glad we’d already got a tan because a lot of people left the beach rather burnt. 

Not washing up pays off in the Bacon Fat Department!

~  Menu  ~

Sweet potato cooked in bacon fat!
Crunchy topped Baked Plaice

  

Yesterday lunchtime, when I hunger struck, I prowled around the kitchen (as much as one can prowl in a 19” caravan) uninspired when suddenly I found a cooked sweet potato in the fridge.  I put it there myself so I wasn’t too startled.  

I decided to fry it till crisp on the outside and was then downhearted to realise I hadn’t washed the frying pan.  However … it had bacon fat in it.  Hurrah!  Let me tell you sweet potato fried in bacon fat and eaten with copious black pepper and some crunchy sea salt is nothing to be sad about.

Later in the day, about 5, I decided to clear out my food cupboard a bit and when I opened the door a packet with a single seeded Ryvita fell out, so I ate it.  I was left with a collection of crumbs and seeds in the packet and wondered what to do with them.  I then found some scraps of hazelnuts and flaked almonds and remembered there were some plaice fillets in the freezer so my meal became clear ...

Baked Plaice with Store-cupboard Leavings Crust

a few seeds and nuts and cracker crumbs and what have you

a handful of fresh breadcrumbs

olive oil

seasonings

fish fillets

~    Preheat oven to 200°C/400°F/180ºC fan/gas 6.

~    Mix together all the dry ingredients and season to you liking – I, of course, added a few chilli flakes.

~    Moisten with the olive oil, stirring till the crumbs are soaked.

~    Season the fish and place on an oiled tray – skin side down if it’s got skin.

~    Smear the top of the fish with oil or butter.

~    Spread the crumb mixture on the fish and bake till cooked – only a few minutes for plaice, longer for a thicker fish.

I had a little piece of butternut squash and a small sweet potato in the fridge so I also made homefries, similar to the ones I used to do for brunch when I was cheffing in the BVI.  Not quite the same because then I used to add Red Bliss potatoes with their skin on which made the dish even prettier but the little potatoes I used are fine too.  

Pretty Homefries

an assortment of potatoes and squash

olive oil

salt & pepper

~   Peel and cut the potatoes and squash into even sized pieces.

~   Cover the potatoes only in cold water, salt the water, and bring to a boil.

~   Turn down the heat, cover and simmer 5 minutes.

~   Add sweet potato and cook covered another 5 minutes.

~   Add squash and cook a further 10-15 minutes till all are tender.

~   Drain thoroughly and allow to steam dry.

~   Shallow fry in olive oil, turning occasionally, till all crisp and golden.

~   Season and eat.

When frying potatoes like this it is important not to disturb them too frequently so that they have time to form crisp crusts. Let them sit a while after adding to the pan before turning them.

Actually when I served the meal it  looked a bit dry and boring, but it was so good I’d have been happy to have eaten it at Rick Stein’s or similar! 

17 more great ideas for bacon fat in my book 

mentioned below.

Speaking of Rick Stein!

Read More Here!

Curried Cashew Fritters - Gorgeous Use for Leftover Bread!

~  Menu  ~

Curried Cashew Fritter

Spoonful of Yogurt

Small Salad with fresh lime juice as dressing

Glass of Carlsberg

In January I was chuffed and proud to have my first magazine article published in Vegetarian Living.  It was titled Use your Loaf but I had originally called it A Baker’s Dozen Ways to use Leftover Bread and gave 13 ways to use said item.  Most of the ideas were tried and tested by me over the years but I was one short.  I had quite a few options but they were all a bit samey so I gave myself a good talking to and invented something; Curried Cashew Nut Fritters.  I was delighted with the result and, yesterday, being at a loose end lunch-wise I decided to follow my own recipe and do it again.  Thing is I couldn’t do it suddenly because it takes too long so I made the mixture yesterday and ate the little darlings today.

Curried Cashew Fritters

1 medium onion – diced

½ tbsp oil

1 tsp curry paste

120g stale bread – torn into pieces, spread out and left to dry out for an hour or so (or popped in the oven for a few minutes)

Up to 125 ml hot vegetable stock

80g or as many salted cashews as you fancy and can muster – coarsely chopped.

~   Fry the onion in the oil till soft and turning brown.

~   Stir in the curry paste and cook a couple of minutes till fragrant.

~   Add the bread pieces and then gradually stir in the stock.  The bread should soak up all the stock and be completely soft but with no excess liquid in the pan so don’t add it all at once, take it slowly. 

~   Remove the pan from the heat, cover, cool and then chill to firm up. 

~   When ready to cook add 80g coarsely chopped salted cashews (don’t add them earlier as they seem to go soggy).

~   Divide into four little cakes and fry in a little oil till hot crisp and golden.

Obviously these are good served with the usual curry accompaniments – raita, chutney etc. I wish I had some cilantro for me sprinkle, but I didn’t.  Sorry.

With this I felt a glass of light beer or lager would be the go and luckily found a can of Carlsberg in the back of the fridge.  I don’t know if this counts as a leftover or not.

Speaking of Leftovers ...

There are 20+ plus more ideas for leftover bread in my book Creative Ways to Use Up Leftovers plus lots of ideas for 450 ish more possible leftovers too!

And yesterday’s lunch?  I fell back on an old favourite …

This is just toast spread with a little of my favourite pasta sauce, Tesco’s Finest Whole Cherry Tomato & Chill, and then topped firstly with dollops of Herb and Garlic Boursin and then hot roasted grape tomatoes (which had a little finely chopped red onion roasted in with them) which melts the cheese to a creamy goo.  So easy, so delicious.  Red wine is a must.

Still glorious weather down here in the West Country and the flowers are amazing!  Maybe it’s because I haven’t seen many English springs in the last 20 years or so but this is great, also rather a spiffing sunset last night, seems to be full sun as well as full moon!

Spur of the Moment Pizza!

~  Menu  ~

Sudden Pizza

Glass of Red

What a gorgeous day it was yesterday – not as gorgeous as my Real Man thought (see below) but seriously lovely.  Because of this I did very little in the food/cooking/writing department.

After breakfast I was going to wash up and then get stuck in, honest, but he suggested we go for a walk which seemed far more attractive, especially where the washing up was concerned.  The lanes are full of blackthorn and we saw a few bluebells and some valerian and ….  I dunno, all sorts of stuff in flower.

Look at that sky!

We went to the beach, Porthcothan Bay, and wandered about talking to dogs and remarking on the weather when suddenly my man said he was going for a plodge (link) and then, true to his word, he did.  He looked a bit of a nancy boy skipping about in the waves holding his shorts up so they wouldn’t get wet but he soon dispelled this impression by stripping off down to his nix and going swimming!  I’ll reiterate April 10^th, England, swimming in the sea with no wetsuit, real man!!! 

When we came back I really fancied a pizza but didn't have time to make my lovely easy pizza dough, even though it is very easy.  

Instead I used my old fallback dough that I use for everything.  I used it for the dumplings in the Mince and Dumplings the other day.  It is basically a scone dough but is equally good for dumplings, doughnuts, American biscuits, English biscuits, griddle cakes, rock buns, doughnuts, cobblers, turnovers and flatbreads.  It's so useful I wrote a book about it ~ The Secret Life of Scones.

To be frank, however, it’s nothing like a pizza base but that doesn’t mean it isn't good topped with pizza type toppings.  So I made the dough and then what? 




No tomato stuff so I spread it with the end of a jar of caramelised red onions I had in the fridge, then some mozzarella that needed using up and lastly a few wafer thin slices of parma ham.  A few minutes in a hot oven and there was my delicious sudden lunch.  My real man had bread and cheese.  

In the evening we went for a short walk out to the cliffs at Bedruthan Steps just because we can – we are so lucky!

It was a little hazy last night (must have been a heat haze) but you get the gist.

4 Quick Lunches

Just in case you’ve been wondering if I have starved to death, not having posted for a few days. here are pictures of my last four lunches …

Mayonnaisy Cheese on Toast – now I may have mentioned this before, I eat it quite a lot.  I just mix together mayonnaise and grated Cheddar in the ratio 1:2, add anything I like - in this case red onion and freshly ground black pepper.  Spread on toast and put under the grill till bubbling and turning golden in places it makes for a fine lunch.

Just a sweet potato baked in the oven (handy hint – put some foil under it, they ooze like bastards) till tender (about 30-40 mins, they are quicker than normal potatoes) with a dollop of mayo and a little sweet chilli sauce.  Delicious.

We are back to the old Tesco bargains and so far they have done us proud.  This, for instance, is a perfectly ripe 35p avocado mashed up, spread on toast with hot sauce and Cornish sea salt.  Glass of white wine, lay in the sun …

And yesterday a salad of Sweet Chili glazed Salmon and fresh pineapple – both leftovers, honest. 

So as you can see I’ve not let myself down too badly I’ve just been busy getting sorted out and reclaiming Cornwall which, as it happens, is as lovely as ever and with amazingly good weather.  We’ve been topping up our Caribbean tans.

Umami on Toast

~  Menu  ~

Sautéed Mushrooms in a Rich Beef Sauce

A sprinkling of Gran Padano

Toasted Mediterranean Bread

Red wine - obviously

I have to admit that I slightly planned this lunch last night when my real man said he didn’t want mushrooms in his Steak & Red Wine Casserole.  I had bought a pack of button mushrooms for 20p, reduced because of the out of date fiasco, but they were more than fine so no hurry to use them up.  As soon as he pooh-poohed the mushrooms I decided what to do with them and kept back a couple of spoonfuls of beef gravy accordingly.

Today I sautéed the mushrooms in a little olive oil and when they were all golden and perfect I stirred in the leftover gravy (which was not ordinary run of the mill type gravy but wine rich gravy with threads of tender steak and slivers of soft onion in it) and piled the lot onto a couple of slices of toasted Mediterranean bread which has sun dried tomatoes and olives and stuff in it.  Just as I was about to eat this tempting lunch I thought “umami”, as one does, and decided to grate over some of the very dried out Gran Padano left in the fridge.

Umami

Just in case you don’t know, but I think you do, umami is  the fifth taste after the four usual ones; sweet, sour, salt and bitter.  It is the flavour that is deeply savoury and wonderful which is found in cheese, mushrooms beef and even in dried tomatoes which were in my bread.  

Whilst preparing this repast I thought and thought and thought - what drink really goes well with all these ingredients?  And then the answer came to me, red wine of course.

Cornwall is full of sunshine though a bit windy.  Stuff bursting out in flower all over the place including fields of tame daffodils which I think are grown for the bulbs as they never seem to cut the flowers. 

We are getting sorted out and used to be being here but for my poor darling it’s not all good - this is his first day back at work.  Bless him – he’s only 49.  So tonight I am making him his favourite meal – Mince and Dumplings which is a doddle …

Beef Mince …

Very basic recipe feel free to add all sorts of things such as garlic, tomato paste, spices etc.!

1 medium onion

1 tbsp olive oil

500g ground beef

1 or 2 beef Oxo

2 tbsp flour
boiling water

~   Coarsely chop the onion and cook in the oil till starting to brown.

~   Add the ground beef and stir and cook till it is changing colour.

~   Crumble in the Oxo and sprinkle over the flour.  Stir all together.

~   Pour over enough boiling water to come just to the top of the meat but not cover it.

~   Bring to a boil stirring as it thickens, turn down the heat and simmer for about half an hour.

At the end of the half hour make the ...

Dumplings

Don't make these in advance - they need to be cooked immediately.

225g self raising flour OR plain flour and 1 teaspoon baking powder

a pinch or two of salt

 50g cold butter or margarine – see below

80ml milk

~   Stir together the flour, salt and baking powder if using

~   Add the butter or margarine and “rub in” with your fingers until a breadcrumb texture is achieved. 

~   Add the milk and mix in, by hand is easiest, till you have a soft dough. 

~   Add a little more milk if too dry or a little more flour if too wet – you need a soft but not sticky dough. 

~   Lightly knead just a few times to bring the dough together.

~   Roll the dough into walnut sized balls (makes about 12-14 so enough for 3-4 standard people or 1½ Geordies) and drop them into the simmering mince, spaced out a bit so that they don’t touch. 

~   Turn down the heat, cover the pot and cook for about 20 mins till the dumplings are risen and firm. 

~   Take the lid off the pot and simmer for a couple more minutes to dry out the top of the dumplings. 

My guy loves this meal – he doesn’t want garlic, or black pepper or any of that fancy southern muck in the food and, you know, its actually quite good, it is and is even a bit umami-ish!