Souffle Tuesday: Showcasing Fresh Thyme

Souffle sur un plat

Four varieties of thyme are thriving in our vegetable garden right now --and all of them work well with goat cheese. To showcase the lemon thyme I took an unusual souffle recipe from the lovely cookbook by Sally Clarke of Clarke's -- a school-of-Chez-Panisse restaurant in London -- and doubled (at least) the amount of herbs. Not subtle, but delicious.
The twist on traditional souffle-baking here is the use of shallow individual soup dishes which gives you souffles with lots of golden top crust.

Goat Cheese and Thyme Souffles for Two
(adapted from "Sally Clarke's Book: Recipes from a restaurant, shop & bakery")

A few tablespoons of melted butter
3 ounces grated Parmesan
2 eggs, separated
5 ounces soft goat cheese
3 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tsp -- or more -- fresh thyme leaves
Salt & pepper

Butter 2 shallow oven-proof soup bowls. Brush them with the melted butter and sprinkle the bottom and sides with some of the Parmesan.
Beat the egg yolks until smooth; beat in the goat cheese and then stir in the thyme and a dash each of salt and pepper and half the remaining Parmesan.
Beat the egg whites to the soft peak stage and fold them into the yolk/goat cheese mixture. Spoon the mixture into the soup bowls and sprinkle the rest of the Parmesan and a few more thyme leaves on top.
Place the bowls on a baking sheet in a 400-degree oven. Immediately lower the heat to 375-degrees.
Bake until the souffles until puffed and deeply golden -- about 10 minutes, although smaller, deeper bowls may take a couple minutes longer. These must be served immediately, but you knew that.

I had lunch at Clarke's nearly a decade ago, but have no notes as to what I ate and remember only a superb pate as the first course. London is not on my regular dining circuit, but a visit to Clarke's website (www.sallyclarke.com) is a small gift I regularly give myself.