Food, Glorious Food!

[multipurposegoddess]

As you may know, I have been stocking up on farm fresh eggs before my egg farm shuts down (woe!), so I have been exploring the exciting and heretofore largely unknown to me world of egg cookery. The first new thing I thought I'd try was soufflés. Now, I still haven't made the Fallen Soufflé Chocolate Cake (I may have some of those words in the wrong order) that first caught my eye, but that recipe led me to a recipe for individual cheese soufflé, and I actually have the right whaddaycallit mold? Pan? Thing you cook soufflés in. So, made that and, y'all, I really like soufflés. It's very possible I never had one before - I've certainly never made them before and I feel like they are usually one of those order at the beginning of your meal if you want them for dessert kind of things in restaurants and, not knowing whether I liked them or not, it's unlikely I would ever have done that. I certainly don't remember having one. And it wasn't nearly as hard as I thought. Pretty much my whole knowledge of soufflés was that they fall and they are fancy, so I was prepared for great difficulty, but it was really pretty straightforward and didn't even take forever.

So then I was all, must make every kind soufflé that can be made, right? So, naturally, I turned to Ratio and looked up soufflé in the index. No joy. So I looked up eggs and that led me to custards - a whole chapter I hadn't gotten to (honestly, there are many chapters I haven't gotten to, I am, like, halfway through cakes, maybe, but it is slow going to master the basic ratio and then experiment with all the wacky things I want to try with it) all about custards, in which I learned (a) your basic custard takes a long time but is actually pretty easy to put together and just requires egg and liquid (2) you can make custards with stock instead of milk or cream and (iii) quiche is basically custard in piecrust. So I immediately started making custards out of chicken stock and that is like the best I'm-kind-of-queasy-but-I-need-some-protein food (I just don't like milk, even as an ingredient, so custards made with milk have never appealed to me that much and custard made with cream is pretty clearly a sometime food). It's gotta bake in a water bath for an hour and a half or so, and then chill for 8 hours, so it's not a thing to whip up when you suddenly realize you are starving and have nothing ready to eat, but a weapon I am pleased to have in my arsenal nonetheless. Especially since the other thing (besides eggs) filling my refrigerator right now is chicken stock (in fact, the freezer is filling up with chickens, and I am constitutionally incapable of throwing out bones that can be made into soup, so no stock shortages are in the offing)

So, today I made my second, not quite as successful but still quite tasty cheese soufflé (protip, ramekins are not the same thing as soufflé molds, volume definitely matters) and while I was making it couldn't help but notice that it felt a lot like making matzo balls. So I toyed with the idea of making some kind of deconstructed matzo ball soup soufflé with chicken filling (ooh, needs some kind of glaze. Can you glaze soufflés? And what would be appropriate? WIne?), but clearly I have not mastered the soufflé enough to be improvising wildly like that.

But I have mastered the chicken stock custard. And I feel pretty good about my pie crusts. And that adds up to some probably unwarranted confidence regarding quiche. So I made a crust out of matzo meal and filled it with chicken stock custard and it was good. Like what I like best about chicken pot pie but no dairy - if I add bits of chicken and vegetables it can only get better. Nom nom nom will definitely make again.