Cuisine and cooking in Burgundy

GOUGERE (Cheese souffle bread)

This is a very easy to make cheese souffle and is generally served when wine tasting.

PREPARATION: 15mins
COOKING TIME: 30 mins
1/2 a litre of milk
120 g of butter
250 g of flour
8 eggs
125 g of gruyere cheese (diced small)
a pinch of salt

2 soup spoons of fresh cream In a pan, put the milk, salt, pepper and butter. Bring to the boil. Take the pan from the heat, mix in the flour with a wooden spoon. Replace the pan on the heat and mix with the spoon to thicken the batter which must not stick to the pan. Take the pan off the heat and place it aside.
Add the eggs 2 by 2 and the diced gruyere, with the fresh cream, mix all together untill even. Place the batter on a buttered griddle in individuly little puffs. Leave some space between them because they will rise with the cooking. On the top of the puffs, baste with beated egg yolk.
Sprinkle the surface with very small cubes of gruyere. Cook in a medium oven (200° C) for 20 to 30 mins. The gougere must be golden, the surface crunchy and the interior soft. Serve warm.
For a wine tasting or to eat with your before diner drinks, make smaller gougeres.

SHOULDER OF LAMB WITH POTATOES

For 6 people:

1 shoulder of lamb of about 1.8 kg 1.5 kg of potatoes
300 g of fresh cream
2 eggs
3 cloves of garlic
2 soup spoons of oil
75 g of butter thyme / bay leaves
salt / pepper

1/ Peel the cloves of garlic, half them and pierce all around the joint with a knife and push the garlic halves into the meat. Rub the shoulder with salt and pepper, sprinkle some thyme, bay leaves and daub it with a little oil.

2/ Put the meat into a large dish and place it in a hot oven (220° C) for 15 mins. 3/ Peel the potatoes, cut them in very thin slices, dry them in a cloth.

4/ Take the shoulder from the oven and place the potatoes slices in layers all around the meat, salt and peppering each layer.

5/ In a flat bowl, beat together the fresh cream and the eggs and pour this over the potatoes. Put the butter ( in small pieces) over the shoulder and leave to cook in oven (180° C) for 1 hour 15. If you wish your joint to be rose in colour, take the shoulder out of the oven before the end of the cooking time and replace the dish into a hot oven (180° C) for 5 mins before serving.

6/ Place the shoulder and the gratin in a dish and present to the table. We recomand a Burgundy red or rosé with this dish. NB: DO NOT OVER COOK THE JOINT

EGGS COOKED IN RED WINE

Prepation time: 10 mins
Cooking time: 25 mins
Ingredients:
2 eggs for 1 person
50g of butter
2 coffee spoons of oil
4 or 5 bacon rashers for each person cut into medium piece
parsley / thyme/ bay ( in a bouquet)
1 bottle of red wine
1 onion
1 bulb of garlic( cleaned and prepared into cloves)
salt & pepper
1 cube of beef extract or water

Put the butter and oil into a sauce pan. Once hot add the bacon, cook untill brown. The onion, garlic and the bouquet of herbs can now be added. Pour the wine and the cube of beef extract ( or water) into the sauce pan, and simmer for 20 mins. After the 20 mins, take the pan off the heat and pour the sauce through the strainer into another sauce pan. At the same time take the bacon pieces and put them with the strained sauce. Bring the sauce back to the simmer, break the eggs 1 by 1 into the sauce, add the salt and pepper to taste. Keep turning the sauce untill the eggs are cooked ( light boiled). Serve hot with lots of french bread or toast.