I’ve just made a soufflé from the strangest soufflé recipe I’ve ever seen. It breaks key rules about the process, it uses an unexpected seasoning, it has unusual ingredient proportions and timing, and it bakes in a way that a soufflé shouldn’t. All my instincts told me this can’t work. The oddity of it all was what tempted me to try it.
The recipe is in The Tuscan Cookbook by Wilma Pezzini, a book that has given me several excellent dishes over the years. And though it prides itself on presenting “traditional and authentic recipes,” the very concept of a shrimp soufflé somehow struck me as un-Tuscan. Well, we’d see about that.
First I had to prepare the shrimp – size not specified – by boiling them in their shells for 10 minutes, then peeling and deveining them. That sounded like too long a time for my half pound of medium shrimp, so I cut it to 5 minutes. That was ample, since the shrimp would be cooked further in the soufflé itself.
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Then I had to make a béchamel sauce, with butter, flour, and milk as usual. But here the proportions were unusual: heavy on the flour and light on the milk. The sauce they produced was so dense that a spoon could stand up in it. The recipe allows for this: “if too solid, add a little more milk.” But I hadn’t heated any extra milk, so I had to thin out the sauce with cold milk, which is never done for a béchamel.
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Now, in every other soufflé recipe I’ve seen, you immediately stir egg yolks into the hot béchamel and proceed to finish the soufflé base. Not here: Before adding the yolks, the pot was to be aside to cool to room temperature.
While waiting, I minced my shrimp, separated two eggs, added an extra white to the egg white bowl, and added ¼ teaspoon of lemon juice to the whites – that last, another thing I’d never done before.
Then I mixed the shrimp into the cold sauce base, stirred in the yolks, 1½ tablespoons of grated parmigiano, and ½ tablespoon of – would you believe? – ketchup. (I could have understood tomato paste, but no; plain American ketchup.)
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Until I whipped the egg whites I wasn’t sure what size baking dish the soufflé was going to need. The whole recipe calls for a “medium-sized” one. I was afraid my half recipe’s worth might be too much for my three-cup soufflé dish, and I didn’t want to fuss with a buttered foil collar around it; so I used a six-cup one.
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It took quite a bit of folding to combine the egg whites with the heavy sauce base, and that reduced the volume of the batter. As it turned out, I really could have used the small dish. But since I wasn’t making the soufflé for company, I didn’t worry about the appearance.
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Now here’s the crowning incongruity of this recipe. The soufflé was to bake for 30 minutes in a 325° oven. I couldn’t believe that was possible. Everything I’ve ever learned about soufflés says they won’t puff up properly without higher heat than that. And sure enough, mine didn’t.
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In addition, that soufflé didn’t test done until it had baked for 50 minutes, the last 15 with the oven temperature raised to 350°. As you can see, it still didn’t rise much. It came out with a texture mostly like a savory custard. However, for a casual supper, with a green salad alongside, it was pleasant enough.
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The shrimp flavor was mild and naturally sweet. The parmigiano and ketchup, unnoticeable in their own right, had provided a slight savory enrichment to the custardy base. I still can’t say it struck me as at all Tuscan in style, but it was interesting to see how breaking so many rules for soufflé making could still produce a dish worth eating. So, not a brilliant success, but surprisingly enjoyable in itself.