Chilled Lemon Souffles

The dessert of the meal I’ve been describing this week was individual chilled lemon souffles, and this comes from a delightful, little book. Eggs by Michel Roux is smaller in size than other books, but in it you’ll find perfected techniques for cooking eggs and a wealth of ideas for egg dishes. Each section is devoted to a way of cooking eggs. The steps involved in the basic preparation are clearly described with instructions and photos, and then several variations on dishes using that preparation are presented. I’m looking forward to trying crunchy fried eggs which is a method of poaching in hot oil. The variations include crunchy fried eggs on darphin potatoes with spinach and crunchy fried eggs on dandelion salad. And, there’s so much more. Classic sauces like hollandaise, mornay, and sabayon are described. There are crepes both savory and sweet, quiches, omelets including rolled Thai varieties, custards, baked eggs, and hard-cooked eggs stuffed with mussels. I really like this book.

While so many dishes jumped out at me as I read this book, the chilled lemon souffle was the first thing I made because it worked well with my plans for the party. This is not a cooked souffle. The ingredients are simply folded together, transferred to serving dishes, and chilled. I wanted to use the freshest eggs I could find, so I headed straight to the farmers’ market. Milagro farms had some beauties last weekend, and I talked with the farmer about the chickens that laid them. They have several varieties of chickens which are allowed to roam free, have a moveable coop so their domain can be moved about the farm, and they’re fed the organic vegetables grown at the farm. The dozen eggs I bought included some brown, some cream-colored, and some pale blue eggs. They were perfectly fresh and delicious. For the souffles, six eggs were separated. The yolks were whisked with sugar and lemon zest. Gelatin sheets were softened in water, the water was squeezed from them, and then they were dissolved in warm lemon juice. That lemon juice was then whisked into the egg yolk mixture. Cream was whipped to a ribbon consistency and folded into the yolk mixture. Egg whites were whisked to soft peaks with some sugar, and then they were folded into the main mixture.

In the book, this is presented as one large souffle with a ring of lemon slices around the top and sliced almonds in the center. I decided to serve it in individual portions instead. So, I used six ramekins and wrapped each of them with parchment paper to support the souffle as it was spooned into each cup and above each rim. The ramekins were chilled for about five hours. Thinly sliced lemon was gently cooked in sugar syrup for a couple of minutes and allowed to cool. I served each souffle with a few lemon slices and a sprinkling of sliced almonds. I was pretty sure this was going to be an enjoyable dessert, but I was surprised by Kurt’s reaction. I had imagined he would tolerate the lemon dessert and find it ok, but he was actually just as thrilled with it as I was. The texture was like clouds as it was set just enough to hold its shape, and the flavor was lovely and lemony without being too assertive. It wasn’t too rich or too filling, and it was a nice way to end the meal.