souffle or quiche?

Last night I made my first souffle. Well actually four of them in those little dishes (ramekins? I'll check spelling before posting this). I love to read cookbooks and of course watch cooking shows. Not so much anymore watching the shows on tv but used to alot. I did check out Julia Child DVDs from the library. She made a whole suckling pig. Looked good. I've never seen one for sale in the market. Maybe I'll ask.

Two, maybe three months ago, while eating out I was talked into a dessert souffle. It was good. So, then at the ferry building in SF and at the great cooking store I got four small ramekins to try and reproduce that dessert.

Would one want to use them right away? NO. First wash and put in cabinet to rest up. Then must read up on souffles. No book in library with the title 'The Souffle.' I thought I saw one with that once but it is not there now.

Old standard cook books, plus disk 2 of Julia say no big deal to make.

I don't like desserts that much and always wanted to have a mushroom souffle, so with ~1/2 lb plain mushrooms and some beautiful chives from Asian grocery store I'm ready to go. Now the big deal is how much these things puff up. And you are supposed to butter the dish. My new commitment is to try to cook these things right so I faithfullly buttered the dishes and in the spirit of Julia made foil collars.

In her show she usese lots of waxed paper (I have some too) and covers the pans with lids that do not fit. She made souffle and put a nice foil collar around the dish. She used plain old straight pens to secure the foil. Sewing pins it looked like to me. I would have never thought of that.

I have pins but am still not sure about using them in the kitchen. Also, I bought some fancy string a couple of years ago and have much left. Bright idea was to make a slip knot and secure the foil at the bottom of the dishes.

It worked. I folded the top of the foil at the overlap to keep it in place. Beautiful collars. Well buttered.

But, not much rise out of the souffles so no need for the foil, the collars, the string, the knot.

I'm ready for next time.

what are roma artichokes?

I've been stopping at Cosentinos market in Campbell Ca and checking out their deli department. Okay, so I'm unemployed and tend to loiter at deli departments. Actually, have been on several food quests over the past few months: suet for mincemeat, kafir lime leaves for soup, speck for a spagetti sauce ($29/lb!). So, at Cosentinos they have these marinated artichoke hearts. I was getting one of the homemade chicken pot pies and struck up a conversation with a fellow patron. He was late sixties in age and ordered three of the hearts. I asked him if they were good. Oh yes was his response. So I got some, very good. Have tried them a couple of time and still good. I spoke with the deli woman and she said a different type of artichoke. Okay another quest. Need to find out how, what, why.

During this time off I've learned about suet (3lb in freezer just waiting to be made into tallow or mincement pie whatever comes first), those pesky lime leaves that I'm not sure are worth the trouble, speck, etc.

Make sure that the suet you buy is really suet. Don't bother with the lime leaves. My plain old boiled artichokes are good but I'm a long way from duplicating the Roma style. Maybe just a local variety but I'll give it a look. Great stories about some of the other stuff. Just wait.