Cooking: Comté soufflé

Comté soufflé, it rose and then deflated again

before I could take a photo

I was given some comté cheese last year and it has been sitting in my fridge ever since waiting for a special event or recipe to use with it. Indecision had left it sitting the fridge for far too long, so a couple of weeks ago I decided to make the comté soufflé from Raymond Blanc's Kitchen Secrets cookbook.

At first look Raymond's book seems incredibly complicated with lots of steps and detail. However, having cooked a couple of recipes now, the instructions are easy to follow and have both produced excellent results.

We were so obsessed with cooking soufflé that we hadn't noticed the recipe served six. It only dawned on us that we had far to much soufflé on our hands as we gently slid them into the oven. A few quick phone calls produced another hungry mouth to help us demolish the soufflé.

The soufflé was deliciously light and it was easy to miss the fact that it consisted largely of full fat milk, cheese and butter. We certainly didn't miss the cheese sauce that we decided to skip serving on the side.

I can't remember the last time I ate comté cheese, but its strong, slightly nutty flavour worked well. We served a salad on the side, but something more able to cut through the richness would have worked even better.

The recipe can be found on Raymond Blanc's website here.