The Substitute Kitchen

Cloud Souffle (Nuvolone)

Do you really need a reason to make this? Look at it, it’s gorgeous. Inspired by the wonderful Almost Bourdain I’d been dreaming of this souffle for weeks now and hadn’t come around to trying the recipe. This morning I was late for breakkie so ended up cooking this for myself, which really, really didn’t bother me. It was a surprisingly easy to cook and yes, tasted just as good as it looks.

Ingredients:

serves 1

2 eggs, separated
Sea salt
50 ml (2 fl oz) cream
40 g (1 1 /2 oz) grated Gruyere cheese
Freshly ground black pepper
unsalted butter for lining the ramekin

How to:

Preheat the oven to 200C (400F). Butter a ramekin dish and set aside. Whisk the egg whites until they start to stiffen. Add salt to taste, then continue whisking until they form peaks. Spoon the egg whites into the ramekins. Then, with the back of a soup spoon, make a well in the middle by pushing the egg whites to the sides. Carefully drop the egg yolks into the well.

Add the cream and cheese on top of the egg. Sprinkle fresh pepper to taste. I omitted the butter that was called for in the original recipe, the cream was enough richness for me.

Smooth the egg whites over the hole. Pop into the oven for 5 to 10 minutes. The tops should be golden and when you break into the crust you should get a delicious warm creamy yolk mix.

Serve with some crusty bread so you can dip into the souffle and get into its soft gooey centre.

I actually ended up with too much egg white with this recipe, so the next time I might try this with 1 large egg per serve.

Scrambled eggs for a wheat/sugar free diet

So here goes. This will be our inaugural entry. We’ve had many adventures in the kitchen over the years, some good some not so fabulous. Cooking in “paradise” has its moments, but this just makes the random successes much sweeter. Kicking things off with a scrumptious breakkie always does wonders.

Inspiration for this recipe comes from ieatishootipost (a fabulous food blog from Singapore) on which there was a short video on how to make the best scrambled eggs. Not only was the chef yummy, but the eggs looked like they would be too. Soooo, when this morning we were scrambling (sorry) for ideas for a decent (sugar free - more on that later) breakfast, we decided to give it a whirl. Here’s what we ended up with, Soft n Fluffy Scrambled eggs on a potato basil pancake topped with balsamic tomato relish. Om nom nom nom.

Start by frying the tomatoes with some thyme, then add the balsamic and a pinch of basil to give it a bit of a kick.

In the mean time mix potato, parmesan, basil mixture.

Split the mixture into three small cakes and let them fry up.

Finally, following the advice of the master chef, avoid whisking the eggs, only mixing them with a spoon before putting them into a buttered pan.

Mix eggs slowly on a low heat until they started to come together. Right at the end add a bit of milk and viola! Super creamy eggs. Only at this point should you add the seasoning, doing this at the cooking stage just dries out the eggs. Stack the potato cakes, follow with eggs and top with the balsamic tomato. Off to enjoy the spoils now.

Scrambled Eggs on cheesy potato cakes topped with Balsamic & thyme tomatoes

Eggs:
3 eggs, mixed gently in a bowl
Splash of milk
salt and pepper to season

Potato cakes:
1 large potato, peeled and grated
1/4 cup of grated parmesan cheese
Handful of chopped basil

Tomatoes:
1 tomato, diced
Sprig of fresh thyme, or a teaspoon of dried
Pinch of basil
Splash of balsamic
Salt & pepper for seasoning