Friday 7 March 2014

61. A Recipe for a Rich Dark Chocolate Soufflé, Mantled in Cream




for Adrian & Rosanna, Pete & Avril – who will enjoy this

And why do we act? this voice said
why, nothing strange, not once you know
but mainly fear, desire & custom
a lot of it vain attempts at establishing some mark
that may last longer than us or, too
just establishing companionships in our common voyages
often, say, by taking food together
                                    so
I offer you this recipe you may well have eaten
with a taste for any luscious feast:
food, like flesh, variously coloured & delightful

This is what you’ll need
to get the applause & interest of your guests:
           200 g high quality plain chocolate (c 70%)
           175 g butter
           175 g caster sugar
           6 large eggs
             – of which you’ll need to
               collect the yolk & white separately
               true magic is to separate then mix
           1 tablespoon well-flavoured instant coffee powder
           2 tablespoons rum (maybe left from Christmas)
           225 ml double cream
           60 ml sour cream

Take a deep pudding basin (2 l or 3 or 4 pints)
& wipe inside with a little almond oil
where it shall wish to be hot & strange
then start like this
(not like some hillbilly king):
break up your chocolate into pieces
& pop into a small bowl
sit it on a steamer
in a little cup
dissolve your coffee powder in 2 tbsps v hot water
& pour (here photos can be difficult) into the chocolate
let it all very quietly melt above the steam
get that going gently
(like a wave towards the pebbled shore)

As this happens beat the butter into a pale cream
(spreading out as the prima primula)
beat in the sugar (with hands that are light) until fluffy
O alchemy, your serious but unstable play comes in here!
beat again each egg yolk in
– how it shall gild itself

Raise up your little bowl of chocolate, show it to all the rest
mix & fold it then most carefully into the golden mixture
making one dark luscious mess
(like this one that’s all about us)
the maiden lights her fire and hastens away
– just to set a large pot of water on the heat
with a trivet waiting to support your basin
like the branches of the pedunculate oak a nest

In another bowl whisk (with your hands)
the egg whites until stiff, then fold (w/ yr hands)
carefully into that dark mixture so they
will not withdraw
                  quickly fill
the prepared bowl (carefully as
a bloody crown upon thy gilded head)
happen just to smooth it down, then cover
with greased & unbroken cooking foil
pleated like a shirt or the sonnets of Petrarch
tie it & trim, let it rest as it should in the boiling water
half-drown’d & gently simmering
– you may need to keep up the boiling water
cover with a lid & keep the sleeves clear!

Three quarters of an hour it’ll take to truly transform
take it out & put carefully aside
let it cool – it is awfully clean now
and cool, let us say, as mushrooms

To serve, to truly serve
hopeful, dirty, noisy & shaken as we are
uncover the pudding & loosen its side
gently with a palette knife or such
carefully invert onto a shallow dish or trencher
whip the cream – it will
lighten a little but still should pour
covering this pudding but not completely
– the moist dark flesh peeping disordered
(we project) through the white & lacy coverlet
then eat, peaceably & agreeably as children do in fun
something simply good & tasty together

[I got his recipe from a cheap 80s recipe book for fine dining (Philippa Davenport[1], 100 Great Dishes Made Easy, Regent Books, 1985). She gave a toned down version of Robert Carrier’s “Negresse en Chemise”, a legendary dish. This was based loosely on continental models (French “Negresse en chemise”, Viennese “Mohr im Hemd”[2]), which tend though to be more cakelike, with typically flour, breadcrumbs, nuts, often ring-shaped rather than breastlike. Carrier’s name for this soufflé, introducing it to Britain, is a problem – the dish undoubtedly is dark, beautiful & fleshy, a mound of delight. A flirtatious sexuality unavoidably attends our eating, indeed, should do so. Questions of power and origin attend all our actions – often unavoidably. Negresse is rejected. But I can’t unname it or her. One would be a cretin to reject the pudding because of its original name. Names, words, can never be innocent – but what can? But puddings at least are never guilty[3].]


[1] Hmm. More poetic connections here?
[2] commemorating Verdi’s Otello
[3] unlike poets

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