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Bean Souffle
1 can beans 1/4 cup water 2 tablespoons flour 3 egg yolks, well beaten 3 egg whites, beaten stiff Press beans through a sieve. Add to this water and flour. Cook together for 5 minutes; add well beaten egg yolks, mix and cool. Cut and fold in the whites of eggs beaten stiff and dry; turn into a greased baking dish or shallow pan, and bake in a medium oven for 30 minutes, or until the center is well set. The dish may be placed in a shallow pan of hot water and a hotter oven used. This will insure a more uniform baking of the souffle. Serves 6.
A plain vegetable soufflé built on a can of beans and three eggs, written for the sickroom kitchen where the cook wanted protein in a form that needed no chewing. It works, but the ingredient list assumes conventions that no longer hold.
- "1 can beans"Period cans commonly ran around 15-16 oz. The recipe does not say which beans; a drained can of plain white beans such as cannellini or navy, sieved, is the closest modern equivalent, and gives roughly a cup and a half of purée.
- Oven temperatureA "medium oven" is conventionally taken as somewhere around 350-375F. The recipe gives no figure for the alternative, only that the dish be set in a pan of hot water and "a hotter oven used"; the water bath buffers the sides.
- Take the water bath optionThe recipe offers it as an afterthought, but it is the difference between a set custard and a rubbery rim with a wet centre. Hot water should come halfway up the dish.
- The flour pasteTwo tablespoons of flour into cold purée and only 1/4 cup water makes a very stiff base. Stir constantly over the five minutes or the flour will catch and taste raw; the mixture should be thick enough to hold a spoon mark.
- Cool before the yolks, and again before the whitesCool after the yolks, before the whites -- "Add well beaten egg yolks, mix and cool" is doing real work. Fold stiff whites into a warm base and they collapse before the dish reaches the oven.
- SeasoningNone is specified. The dish needs salt, pepper and a little butter to be worth eating.
- Yield and timingSix servings, as stated, though they are small; four is realistic at table. Serve straight from the oven, since any soufflé of this type sinks within minutes.