Too much fuss is made about the effort and precision required to make a souffle. So I can understand a degree of anxiety when faced with the idea of creating something not just tasty, but also visually perfect, which is why I focus on the former and pretty much ignore the latter (see the photo for evidence). And while these souffles may not look exactly like souffles, they do taste like souffles. and this one tastes amazing. I kind of ripped it off from Dean Street Townhouse, who’s smoked haddock souffle is so good, I’m unable to order anything else when I go there. In fact, by finally doing this at home myself, I’ve managed to free myself from their shackles and I will at last be able to move on and order something else next time I’m there (which isn’t likely to be soon given we’ve moved from Soho to Kings Cross, where I will now no doubt find a new hangout that offers something equally alluring to entrap me once again. It’s never ending).

So here goes. The only real trick is that once you start whisking the egg whites, you should try to get things put together and into the oven fairly quickly. You don’t want to be farting around for too long or your souffles will suffer. Apart from that, it really is very simple. Oh and feel free to muck about with the quantities depending on how fishy/cheesy/airy you want yours. I’m all about strong flavours as you may have noticed.

Smoked haddock and gruyere souffle (with two missing accents)
Start with about 200ml of double cream in a small pan and into it place a small fillet of really good undyed smoked haddock, probably only about 150g or so. Bring the cream to the boil, turn down and simmer for just a couple minutes and then leave to cool. When it has cooled, flake the haddock finely between your fingers. Lick your fingers, enjoy and then wash your hands. Grate in some nutmeg and finely chop a handful of dill and pop that in too.

In the meantime, make a small quantity of bechamel. Take about 20g of butter, melt it in a small saucepan, add about 20g of plain flour and mix together on the heat. Now take about 200ml of whole milk and add it very slowly, a little at a time, slowly loosening the roux until you have a silky smooth bechamel which you need to cook for a couple of minutes on a low heat. At this point, you should no longer be able to taste the four in the sauce. Season with a little salt and plenty of pepper. Separate 4 medium sized organic eggs and once the bechamel has cooled a little, whisk in the egg yolks.

Grate about 100g of gruyere (or parmesan) finely into a bowl and take 4-5 ramekins (depending on their size – you can decide if you want lots of small ones or one big one, or something in between for that matter – just use what you have), butter them liberally and then line them with some of the grated cheese so that it forms a light coating around each the ramekins. Take the remainder of the cheese, the bechamel, the creamy haddock and mix them all together in a large bowl.

Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until they form stiff peaks and fold them gently into the creamy, fishy, cheesy mixture. Fill the ramekins pretty much to the top and place them in a bain marie (the water should be boiling hot) and into the oven at 190c for about 8-10 minutes (longer if you’re doing on big one)

Take them out and serve immediately with a peppery green salad and crusty bread. Don’t worry if they’re a little runny in the middle – they’re better that way. Dean Street Townhouse serve them with a rich cheese sauce, which is also amazing – I’ll try that next time and add to this post it if I manage to make it to the keyboard afterwards.

And you have any souffles left, cover them and put them in the fridge for another day – as long as you didn’t overcook them, they’ll do really well second time around as twice baked souffles…