Soufflé di Cipolle - Onion Soufflé

So I had this bright idea, a week or so ago. I'm going to give myself deadlines, in order to make myself write more. And what better way to do that than to use other people's deadlines! I'm subscribed to Is My Blog Burning? and read the post about the last HHDD, Challenge: Soufflé! I've never participated in one of these group blog events before and figured this would be the perfect one to do. I've never made a soufflé before, but do enjoy eating them.

I chose the onion soufflé because I wanted to make a savory one and it seemed to be the simplest one in the SS. And then, I started early: A full five days before the post was due, I began chopping my onions, 11 ounces of onion, to be precise (and I figured this recipe would warrant precision). Once finely chopped, I melted two tablespoons of butter and added the onions, and began cooking them over low heat for 10 minutes, until lightly browned. I then added one cup of vegetable stock (the recipe called for meat, but I was cooking for a vegetarian). I then left it to simmer for an hour.

In the meantime, I meticulously buttered a glass oven proof dish and preheated the oven to 400º. It seemed to be the right proportions and dimensions for a soufflé, but I wasn't positive about this.

I then cooked up a batch of béchamel, also from SS, which I'll be sure to write up later, though it will be lacking photos.

When the hour was up, I seasoned the onions with salt and pepper and sprinkled in a half cup of brandy. Some of you may be aware of my proclivity for cooking with booze. Adding the brandy in this dish not only satisfied that, but also left the brandy (long ignored bottle) sitting innocently by the stove and tempting me when I came to cook later dishes. Let me just say that a splash of brandy does not disappear quite as delicately as do my beloved marsala or sherry.

The recipe said to add a pinch of sugar if the mixture tasted sour, which I didn't find. I then cooked a bit longer till it seemed like the liquid was diminished, but it didn't seem that it was completely evaported. I wasn't sure how much this mattered so I moved on. I stirred in a cup of grated Emmenthal and removed the pot from the stove. I stirred four egg yolks into the béchamel, one at a time, then added the onion mixture and a pinch of freshly grated nutmeg.

Then I whipped the four remaining egg whites until stiff and gently, oh so gently folded them into the mixture and carefully spooned it into the prepared dish. I baked it for 20 minutes then lowered the heat to 350º and baked for five more minutes. I'd already staged the area where I planned to take its photo and lurked around the kitchen like a crazed papparazzi.

A crazed papparazzi with a dead camera.

The much awaited starlet emerged from the oven, all poofed up and lovely, moved to the staging area, and while I scurried around looking for my cell phone (to use its camera) promptly fell. Flump.

And I couldn't get one single decent photo of it.

Since my documentary film professor hammered into my head that if I don't have it on film (or disc) it didn't happen, I decided I'd start all over again. But this time, I was inching closer to the deadline. I should probably mention that we devoured the sunken starlet and it was absolutely delicious! Just not very airy, more eggy.

The next day I had some spare time was saturday, dangerously close to the deadline. In fact, it was the day of the deadline. I just had to have the new soufflé made, photographed and written up by midnight. No problem, right?

Clearly, that's wrong, otherwise you would have seen this post days ago. I went through the steps again, examining what I could have done wrong. Were the onions not dry enough after I'd added the brandy? This time, I let them simmer as long as I could and got them as dry as I could. Was the glass dish too thin to sustain the temperature? I knew I had miniature soufflé dishes, so I just made individual ones. Eight individual ones and a ninth larger bowl because I ran out of dishes before I ran out of soufflé.

I also apparently forgot to buy cheese this time, but had some goat gouda around and decided to grate that up instead of the Emmenthal. There. Nine soufflés, all in the oven, didn't open it once lest I make them fall. Took them out as directed and, well... They weren't even above the edge this time.

I had filled them up to three quarters full, which I read online somewhere.


I tried not to overmix the soufflé once I'd added the egg whites.

I was careful to not leave too many liquids in the onions. I'm really not sure what went wrong.
Also, I somehow got distracted by eating and drinking some wine and never got around to writing it in time, and then, once I'd missed the deadline, what was the rush?

As for the cheese choices, the goat gouda was even more delicious than the soufflé with the Emmenthal. When I try this recipe again, hoping yet again to succeed, I would probably use the goat gouda again. Or maybe some drunken goat?

Tasty Factor: A-/C+ (depends on if you're rating on flavour or texture) Ease of Preparation: C (well it can't be that easy if I've failed it twice!) Modifications: Yes. The second time, I used goat gouda instead of Emmenthal.