My maternal grandmother’s sister hated cheese: she just couldn’t eat it, and she was also disgusted by its smell. It is, therefore, extremely original that one of the most delicious cheese dishes I have ever eaten was cooked by her for one of the family dinners in Porto San Giorgio. Like all family recipes, the measurements are a little improvised. Everything was done by eye, and therefore each time the dish tasted slightly different. So, in cases where the dish had reached excellence, the cook’s conclusion was always “it was better the other time”!
Gruyere pudding
- Preparation time: 60 minutes
- Ingredients for 6-8 servings
- Difficulty: Difficult recipe
- Ingredients
- For the béchamel:
- 3 oz or 70 gr of butter
- 3 oz or 70 gr of flour
- ½ US quart or ½ l of milk
- For the pudding:
- 3 egg yolks
- 3 egg whites
- 4 oz or 100 gr of grated gruyere
- Salt and pepper to taste
- Butter to taste
- Breadcrumbs to taste
- For the mushroom sauce:
- 1 lb. or 500 gr of fresh mushrooms (porcini or other quality)
- ¾ oz or 20 gr of flour
- ¾ oz or 20 gr of butter
- ½ US quart or ½ liter of vegetable broth
- Extra virgin olive oil to taste
- Instructions
- Prepare the béchamel. For more details on how to do this, check out this link (link to bechamel basics).
- Beat the egg whites in a bowl until stiff.
- Add the Gruyère to the warm béchamel and then the yolks, one at a time. Then add the whipped egg whites, stirring from bottom to top.
- Pour the mixture into a buttered cake tin sprinkled with breadcrumbs.
- Bake at 350°F for about thirty minutes.
- Meanwhile, prepare the mushroom sauce. Clean the fresh mushrooms well and cut them into large pieces. Melt the butter in a small pan and add the flour. Mix the polenta well with a whisk and cook until it reaches a nice golden color. Then add the vegetable stock and continue cooking. In a non-stick pan with a little oil, cook the fresh mushrooms over high heat. When cooked, after a few minutes, add them to the mushroom sauce.
- Take the pudding out of a serving dish and serve with the mushroom sauce.
Tips to ensure the success of the dish:
- Gruyere is not Emmental; they are two different kinds of cheese.
- This béchamel is quite solid because of the use of a lot of flour. The béchamel you buy ready for this type of preparation is not good.
- Add the egg yolks to the mixture one at a time and the egg whites in three times: in the first, the mixture should be mixed well; in the second and third addition the mixture should be gently mixed with a spatula from the bottom to the top so as not to remove the egg whites.
- If you want to make a single portion (as in the photo), the cooking time is reduced to fifteen to twenty minutes at the most.
from left: Lina, Lea, Granny Irene and Doriana
