Herbed 'Parmesan' Souffle

Tonight, I am experimenting with Versawhip! This soy protein was developed by Chef Will Goldfarb, among other fun products - check out the website at willpowder.net Once added into water, it whips into a foam like egg whites. I wondered if perhaps it would be the key to making the ever-elusive vegan dish - a souffle. I have tried to make puddings and souffles in the past, which, while yummy, never puff up quite like an egg white.

The disclaimer then, is that almost nothing in the original recipe I followed tonight was vegan. The results are currently in the oven, success to be determined...

First, coat a one and a half quart souffle dish with cooking spray. Sprinkle with 1/3 cup breadcrumbs, turning to evenly coat the bottom and sides. Set aside.

In a saucepan, combine 2 tablespoons potato starch, 1/2 tsp. salt, 1/8 tsp. ground red pepper, and 1/8 tsp. nutmeg. Slowly pour in one cup plain soy milk (such as Silk), stirring constantly with a whisk. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Once boiling, cook another minute, still stirring. The recipe said that the mixture would be "thick" but mine was very thick - as in, would-hardly-shake-off-the-whisk thick. I wondered if that was normal, or whether I overcooked and misjudged the boiling point...

But anyway, remove from heat and stir in 3/4 cup grated 'Parmesan' (shredding the vegan Mozzarella block from Galaxy Foods works well here), 1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (substitute 1 teaspoon dried if you like), and 1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley.

Let sit for one minute, then stir in one "egg" using egg replacer of your choice (such as Ener-G).

Now the fun part! In a large bowl, use Versawhip to create the equivalent of 6 egg whites (see what I mean about the recipe not being vegan....?). The Versawhip package actually does not specify how much equals one egg white. The best estimate I could come up with through online sources was 2 teaspoons of the powder mixed into 1/4 cup water. So for 6 egg whites, that's 4 tablespoons powder and one and a half cups water. Add 1/8 tsp. cream of tartar.

Beat it with a mixer and you will be amazed - it really does foam up like nothing I've seen since... well, since an egg white.

Gently spoon half of the egg whites into the 'cheese' mixture, then gently fold in the remaining half. I didn't quite need to use all of the "egg white" produced by my Versawhip whipping, or the souffle dish would have overflowed.

Now comes the moment of truth... bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 35 minutes.

The suspense of course is ruined by the picture above... no it didn't puff up. However, it more closely approximated a souffle than my past attempts, pre-Versawhip. The result was too salty and a bit gloppy... but still yummy. Although I probably can't recommend this for a holiday table, as was my hope, have it at home if you want to experiment. Divide into 6 equal portions of about 120 calories each.

Cost:
potato starch $3.99
plain soy milk $1.69
'parmesan' $3.39
parsley $1.99
Versawhip $8.00