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Celery Souffles
Trim and wash about half a pound of the white part of celery, cut it into slices, blanch in salted water, and drain. Put a gill and a half of milk, a bay-leaf, a small blade of mace, and a slice of onion, with the celery into a stewpan, and boil till tender; remove the mace and bay-leaf, and pass the remainder through a fine sieve. Put a gill of water and one ounce of butter in a stewpan, add a pinch of celery salt, and as soon as it boils stir in one ounce of flour. Stir briskly for a few minutes over the fire, then put in the celery puree, and let it cool a little. Add one ounce of grated Parmesan cheese. Stir in gradually the yolks of two eggs and one whole egg. Whisk the whites of two eggs to a stiff froth and mingle with the mixture, season with a very little cayenne. Put it into a pie-dish of sufficient dimensions to allow of the souffle swelling; it should, in fact, be only two-thirds full. Bake in a hot oven for about ten minutes, and serve without a moment's delay. Probable cost, 1s. 3d.
A late-Victorian savoury souffle built on a water-and-butter panada rather than a milk bechamel, which keeps the celery flavour forward. It is small — enough for two as a savoury course or a light supper dish.
- GillsA gill is 5 fl oz (about 140 ml, a scant 2/3 US cup). So a gill and a half of milk is 7 1/2 fl oz, about 210 ml, and a gill of water about 140 ml.
- Hot ovenRead "hot" as 400-425F (200-220C). Ten minutes is right only for a shallow dish; in a deeper pie-dish give it 15-20 minutes and stop when the centre still has a slight wobble.
- The hingeFold the whisked whites in with a light hand and get the dish into the oven at once. The souffle relies entirely on air in the whites — a mixture that sits on the bench while the oven comes up to heat will not rise.
- Blanching the celeryHalf a pound is about 225 g, roughly one small head's worth of pale inner ribs. Blanching removes the raw bitterness; two or three minutes in salted water is enough before the milk infusion.
- Passing through a sieveThe Victorian cook pressed the cooked celery and its milk through a hair sieve to catch the strings. A blender does the work faster, but still push the puree through a fine sieve afterwards — celery fibre is unpleasant in a souffle.
- Panada consistencyOne ounce each of butter and flour to a gill of water gives a thick binding sauce, roughly twice the thickness of a pouring sauce. Once the celery puree goes in it will loosen; let it cool to hand-warm before the yolks go in or they will scramble.
- Egg countTwo yolks plus one whole egg into the base, then the two remaining whites whisked to a froth: three eggs in all, with nothing left over.
- Parmesan and cayenneOne ounce is about 30 g, finely grated. The cheese and celery salt already carry salt, so taste before adding more, and keep the cayenne to a few grains.
- Serving"Without a moment's delay" is not flourish. A savoury souffle of this size begins to sink within two or three minutes of leaving the oven.
Souffles entered English cookery from the French repertoire in the early nineteenth century, and by the time Cassell's dictionary was being compiled (its editions appeared from the 1870s onwards) they had become a standard savoury course -- the small hot dish served after the sweet at a formal English dinner, where cheese, celery and cayenne were common flavours. Celery itself was a fashionable winter vegetable in Victorian Britain, grown blanched in earthed-up trenches so the ribs stayed pale and mild, and it appears constantly in period cookbooks as a puree, a sauce and a flavouring salt. The "probable cost, 1s. 3d." is characteristic of Cassell's, which was aimed at middle-class households; costing each dish would have helped in checking the kitchen accounts.