We invited Cynthia and Ricardo for Sunday Brunch and bocce. They arrived at 11:00 with special garlic and basil crackers from NY, bread slices and a cheese spread. I opened a bag of marinated olives from Trader Joe’s and Ricardo made mimosas.
Crab Soufflé
After a good game of bocce we retired to the kitchen and Suzette made a double recipe of crab soufflé. I had thawed out the 1 lb. plastic container of lump crab meat I had bought at Sprouts several months ago for $10.99 yesterday. She started by separating the whites from the yolks of six eggs. I then whipped the whites into stiff peaks while Suzette made a béchamel sauce with 4T. of butter and flour and I am not sure how much milk. I am not sure what recipe she used but there are a number of simple soufflé recipes on the internet. She took the béchamel sauce off the heat and after it cooled a bit Suzette added the 6 egg yolks and stirred them in. She then folded in 12 oz. of crab meat. Then she folded that mixture into the whipped egg whites with a large spatula. She then poured the mic tire into a buttered soufflé dish sufficiently large to hold the entire mixture, which nearly filled the dish. I mentioned collaring the soufflé dish but Suzette rejected that idea. She then placed the pan on the second level and cooked the soufflé in the new steam oven for 29 minutes. We sipped mimosas as we watched the soufflé rise a bit but not overflow the dish and then settle a bit as it stiffened as it cooked. I was amazed that it did not overflow.
I made my favorite Cesar salad with fresh greens from the garden. Suzette made fresh croutons from some old Fano baguette by curbing them and the shaking them in a one gallon plastic freezer bag with salt, pepper, olive oil, and herbs and then baking them on a baking sheet in the oven with top and bottom heat. I diced ½ cucumber, two Roma tomatoes, three or four oz. of red onion and shaved several oz. of Pecorino Romano cheese onto the salad. We steamed about fifteen stalks of asparagus that I diced and put into the salad also. I revived the Cesar salad dressing with the juice of 1/3 lemon and about twice that amount of Sprouts Spanish olive oil. Finally I rinsed off six or seven Roland salted Spanish anchovies from the 24 oz. can we bought at the Southwest wholesale food market located near Costco in the Renaissance Center across from the Smart car dealership.
Cynthia and Ricardo brought a quart jar full of fresh squeezed orange juice and a bottle of Cupcake Prosecco. I opened a bottle of Jaume Serra Cristalino Extra dry (Total Wine $7.99 less 20%). We drank a bottle of Lagranja Cava Brut with a 70% xarel-lo and 30% paradellada blend of grapes. Both were Cavas from Catalan and both were made in the Traditional Method. We plated our plates with crab Souffle and Cesar salad and grabbed our flutes of Cava and went to the gazebo in the garden for a warm sunny afternoon brunch.
Ricardo had a rehearsal at 2:00 so we said goodbyes at 1:45.
We napped until 4:30.
We were not hungry, so we decided to eat the PPI lamb stew with PPI mashed potatoes. This made an instant meal that we ate with a Tuella Portuguese red from the Duero/Douro. A nice hot meal.
Bon Appetit
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