For your enjoyment…

Are you like me on weekends or special holidays or when you have guests? On those occasions I like to cook something very special, not the usual fare. Then I’m either spoilt for choice or nothing occurs to me. If even the most intensive search on the internet comes to nothing, or leafing through piles of cookbooks fails to offer a solution, try out our Recipe of the Month! 

From chefs of the Schick restaurants in Vienna, every month there will be a new, seasonal recipe from Austrian-Spanish or Viennese cuisine for you to cook and enjoy at home!

In December 2011:

Cream soup of red bell peppers
with Manchego cheese soufflé and “Pimientos de Padron”

Ingredients for 4 persons: 

Cream soup of red bell peppers:
3 fresh red bell peppers
2 shallots
2 cloves garlic
1/8 l olive oil
1/2 l vegetable stock
125 g créme fraiche
salt, pepper, some chili powder
cumin
lemon juice

Manchego cheese soufflé:
30 g butter
30 g olive oil
60 g all-purpose flour
200 ml milk
2 tbsp. sherry
3 eggs
100 g Manchego cheese, grated
salt, nutmeg
butter for the molds

8 pimientos (miniature green peppers)
sea salt

Preparation:

Cream soup of red bell peppers:
Peel and cut shallots. Wash peppers and remove seeds. Cut into rough cubes and sweat in olive oil, together with the shallots. Add garlic and spices, then pour vegetable stock over mixture. Simmer for 15 minutes. Add créme fraiche, simmer briefly. Mix with hand blender. Season to taste.

Manchego cheese soufflé:
Melt butter and olive oil together. Add flour, stir briefly. Add milk and sherry. Heat mixture and stir until smooth. Season with salt and nutmeg. Separate eggs. Stir yolks one after the other into the mixture. Allow mixture to cool.

Beat egg whites, then fold into the cooled-down mixture alternatingly with the Manchego cheese.

Butter molds. Fill molds with the mixture. Bake the soufflés approx. 15 minutes at 150 degrees C.

Pimientos de Padron:
Wash pimientos, dry with paper towel. Fry in olive oil for several minutes at medium temperature. Allow to drip onto a paper towel. Season with sea salt.

Froth soup again before serving. Serve the soufflé directly in the soup or separately, together with the Pimientos de Padron.

Have fun cooking and bon appétit!