sunday suppers

Sunday evenings have never been our strong suit socially. Around our home, Sundays are usually accompanied by a good deal of whining about the return to work and a throw-in-the-towel refusal leave our place or start new projects. We like to think that we are "preparing" ourselves for the coming week, but it is more likely just moodiness. It is a night to organize ourselves and get a start on meals for the week, making doughs and soaking beans, but that doesn't excuse us for behaving like shut-ins.

The pleasures of a simple Sunday supper may be just enough to shake us out of our reclusive habits. It is the perfect excuse to brush aside any thoughts of the next week for another few hours and just share in good food. When we invited two of our friends over this last Sunday for an early dinner (which it didn't end up being - sorry, guys!), we looked at it as a chance to make a warming, simple, seasonal meal. Now, I didn't say easy, because that would frankly be out of character, but our Sunday approach did mean we avoided the intensive multi-course meals we try to pull off on other weekend nights. A soup, a salad, a bread and some cookies. What could be more satisfying on a night that was just barely holding back flurries of snow?

I'd been looking at recipes for gougeres for quite some time now, namely because of a New Year's sandwich from the Zuni Cafe. Their photo was seductive - crackling crisp crust with bits of cheese oozing out. It didn't hurt that Judy Rodgers chose to stuff them with bacon and pickled onions, either. Knowing that I am not the baker in our relationship, I'd never gotten around to the recipe, but after having finally tried some at Beast, I had just been waiting for the right occasion. It certainly helped my confidence to have just read an eloquent explanation of gougeres on Michael Ruhlman's Elements of Cooking site - a blog filled with many other lyrical and edifying descriptions of the foundation techniques of the kitchen. At their heart, gougeres are founded on a pâte a choux - a cooked dough that is among the more interesting bits of culinary chemistry that I've seen. Essentially, the steam of the cooking and the addition of the eggs develops a gluten structure that puffs up grandly in the oven. Add cheese to your basic dough and you have gougeres; sugar, and it becomes an eclair.

Supper:
Chanterelles on Toast from Chez Panisse

Radicchio, Mint, Apple, and Asian Pear Salad with Buttermilk Dressing from Lucques

Apple and Chestnut Soup

Gougeres from Zuni Cafe

Cocoa Nib Butter Buckwheat Cookies from Pure Dessert with Fig Cake and Gorgonzola Dolce
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New Year's Eve Gougeres
Adapted from Zuni Cafe Cookbook by Judy Rodgers

Rodgers has an amazing voice that runs throughout her book - a quality that all good cookbooks should have. From her, I have perfected cooking dried beans and shelling chestnuts - reading it is like having Rodgers in your kitchen. I have been known to read this cookbook for fun.

For 20-24 Three-bite-sized gougeres:
1 cup water
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 teaspoons salt (a little more if using kosher)
4 ounces all-purpose flour (1 cup)
4 large eggs, cold
1/2 to 3/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper
2 ounces Gruyere, cut into 1/4-inch cubes (about 1/2 cup) [If you are planning on piping the dough into shapes, I would recommend coarsely grating the cheese, rather than cubing it.]

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

In a 2- to 4- quart saucepan, bring the water, butter, and salt to a simmer over medium heat. Add the flour all at once and stir vigorously until the mixture masses and detaches itself from the sides of the pan. Reduce the heat to low and cook, beating constantly, until the batter is very stiff and almost shiny, usually a few minutes. Off the heat, add the eggs one by one, beating thoroughly with a wooden spoon to completely incorporate each egg before adding the next. The mixture will initially resist each addition; you'll find yourself cutting through and slapping together slabs of slippery, warm paste until it gradually absorbs the egg and becomes sticky again. [Transferring the dough to a stand mixer prior to adding the eggs will develop a better consistency and save your wrists - believe me, when Rodgers says "stiff," the dough puts up quite a struggle. Each egg will make the dough slough apart into slippery sheets, but just as quickly, it will become a thick paste.] The final mixture should be no hotter than tepid. [We found they even benefited from brief refrigeration.] Add the pepper to taste and stir in the Gruyere.

If you are proficient with one, transfer the batter to a pastry bag, and pipe 2- to 3-inch long bands onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet about 2 inches apart. Otherwise use a spoon to scoop out a heaping tablespoon of batter per gougere and a second spoon to scrape it into a peaky mound on the prepared baking sheet.

Bake until firm and a rich golden brown, about 25 minutes [They will likely need the full time to get crisp and retain their height - any of ours that we prematurely removed deflated quickly.] Inevitably, some bits of cheese will ooze and form a delicious, crispy bib on the edges of the gougeres. To check doneness, remove 1 gougere and pry open. The interior strands of dough should be tender and moist, but not mushy; if they are, close the gougere and return it to the oven to bake with the rest for another few minutes. If you are concerned that they may overbrown, simply turn off the oven and leave to finish cooking in the ambient heat.
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Perhaps we should make a habit of such Sunday evenings.