Last week was Valentines Day – my blog seems to have got a bit behind! Apparently Valentines Day and Mother’s Day are the busiest days of the year in restaurants! We are not really big on Valentines Day, but I usually make a nice meal and we have a nice bottle of wine.
Last week we had fresh tuna. I have never cooked tuna before, but I do really like it. I followed a recipe in and Annabel Langbein book for a nicoise style salad. The tuna was marinated in a mixture of olive oil, rosemary, black pepper and chilli flakes. The salad was a mix of beautiful fresh beans, capers, baby salad leaves and black olives with a dressing of good olive oil, sun dried tomatoes, lemon juice, chopped basil and anchovies. I also cooked some waxy potatoes. I served the tuna on the salad with a dollop of anchovy mayonnaise that I had made earlier in the week.
My husband actually cooked the tuna on the bbq. It was beautiful –melt in your mouth!! I will definitely be cooking tuna again soon!!
Pudding was these lovely little raspberry soufflés. I have never made sweet soufflés before – I’ve only made one large cheese soufflé ages ago. This was a recipe from Bill Granger’s latest book, Holiday. It appealed to me because it was nice and light and with raspberries looked vaguely Valentines Day like!! I actually halved the recipe so that I would just make two soufflés – no leftovers to nibble ate! But I got three out of the halved mixture.
The texture of the soufflés is lovely and light. It tastes like you are eating raspberry clouds! They are not too sweet either. One thing I did make sure of though, was that I beat the egg whites and folded them into the raspberry puree just before I put the soufflés into the oven – I didn’t want to take the risk of them collapsing on me. I will definitely be trying my hand at soufflés again!
Raspberry Souffles (from Bill Granger’s Holiday)
200g frozen raspberries, thawed
115g castor sugar
2 tsp cornflour
4 egg whites
· Brush 4 ramekins with melted butter. Sprinkle with sugar and put in the fridge
· Process raspberries in food processor until smooth
· Heat raspberries in small pot with half the sugar, bring to the boil
· Make a slurry with the cornflour and 2 tsp water and add to the raspberries. Cook for about 1 minute, stirring
· Cool raspberry mixture completely
· Beat egg whites until soft peaks form, gradually add remaining sugar and beat until thick and meringue like
· Fold the raspberries into the egg whites
· Spoon into the chilled ramekins
· Bake at 170c for 12-14 minutes until puffed up
Serve straight away
5 comments:
These souffles are just gorgeous, and perfect for Valentines Day. The tuna sounds delicious too. Your husband is very lucky! I have Bill's book, so I will have to check this one out.
These look really inviting & seem easy to make I wonder, what size ramekin did you use? Lyn
I used the custard cup size -about 125ml I think
Hi Tammy
I enjoy reading your blog and your comments on Foodlovers.
I have a couple of questions about your raspberry souffle (which I'd love to surprise my partner with).
Is is okay to substitute frozen berries for fresh? And, being a complete souffle nocive, but I've seen them made on tv!. Should the ramekins be placed in a water bath for baking.
Cheers, and thanks :)
Paula
Hi Paula
Thanks for your comment!! I did use frozen raspberries and they worked great (fresh ones are too precious to cook with I think!!) and no, the ramekins didnt need to go in a water bath. I think if you put them in a water bath it would make them more custardy than souffle like. Good luck and I would love to know how you get on!!
Tammy
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