Spring Has Sprung Gougeres?

Yes, I’m still alive.  I went to sign on today and I couldn’t remember my password.  It’s been a long while and I should be ashamed of myself.  Save me the “tsk tsk’s”, I have berrated myself enough.  I have been a busy, and sometimes lazy, girl. 

I have so much to post about.  I took a girl’s food trip to NYC that was mind-blowing.  I planted a garden (well, my husband did much of the hard labor, but I was the CEO of the project).  I have been cooking some yummy stuff too.  I’m going to start back nice and easy and post about my cheese puffs to start.

These are not the Brooklyn Cheese Puffs that my mother made and I had immortalized in the cookbook (see other post).  These are the French cheese puffs, gourgères(pronounced goo-jhair), made with a choux pastry dough.  My friend Susan and I began our interest in food and wine together back in the early 1990’s.  We’d go out drinking, hitting the bars around our small city in central Pennsylvania.  The next morning we’d sit at her kitchen table nursing hangovers, and perusing cookbooks, food magazines, etc.  We found a new food magazine called Saveur and we just new we were cool to be hip to this new food rag – Gourmet and Bon Appetit were for newbies.  It was 1994, and we found a recipe for gourgeres and it was accompanied by the most charming little story about a woman named Colette (the pen name of a French novelist.  Ever heard of Gigi?) who was the inspiration for the birth of the magazine.  We didn’t know a gougères from a Pilsbury cresent roll, but they sounded delicious and the ingredient list was short and familiar, except for the Gruyère cheese.   We found ourselves a hunk of Gruyère and set to work.  Actually, to be honest, I think Susan did most of the stirring and work in general, and I probably sat at the table paging through her library books, smoking cigarettes and drinking tea.  In any case, OUR gougères turned out lovely and I have kept this recipe in my collection ever since.

I recently pulled out the recipe and the picture of Colette, remembered our first attempt, and 15 years later set to work myself.  Here is the recipe and a picture of my finished product.  Light, airy and gorgeous to look at.  If you are a fan of Gruyère cheese with it’s salty and nutty qualities, be prepared to fall in love.  Gougères with a glass of red wine and a cooking magazine to page through - well, there’s nothing finer. 

 

 

My gougeres on the serving platter Susan gave us as a wedding gift.

 

 

Gougères

Courtesy of Saveur Magazine

5 Tbl. butter

1 tsp. salt

1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper

1/4 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg

1 cup all-purpose flour

1 cup grated gruyere cheese

5 large eggs, at room temperature (very important)

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.  Add butter, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to 1 cup water in medium saucepan and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.  When butter melts, reduce heat to low.  Add flour to butter-water mixture all at once and cook over low heat, beating with a wooden spoon, for 1 minute, until mixture pulls away from sides of pan.  Remove pan from heat.  Add cheese to pan and beat in with a wooden spoon until well incorporated.  Add 4 eggs, 1 at a time, beating each egg into the batter until thoroughly absorbed.  Continue beating mixture until it is smooth, shiny, and firm.  Drop batter in small spoonfuls onto a lightly greased cookie sheet to form gougères.  Beat remaining egg with 1/2 tbsp. water, then brush tops of uncooked gougeres with egg wash. 

Bake in upper third  of oven for 15-20 minutes or until gougères are golden and doubled in size.  Remove from oven and serve hot, or allow to cool to room temperature. 

Yield:  Approximately 3 dozen