Cambridge News | cambridge-news.co.uk | January 18, 2014 | 25
food & drink
Take our survey on your food habits at cambridge-news.co.uk/food-and-drink TWICE-BAKED CHEESE SOUFFLÉS (serves 6) For the souffles: 1tbsp (heaped) polenta 1½tbsp olive oil, plus extra for greasing 1tsp butter 25g plain flour 250ml semi-skimmed milk 50g grated Parmesan cheese 1tsp Dijon mustard 50g light soft cheese 2tbsp (heaped) snipped chives, plus extra to serve 2 large egg yolks 3 large egg whites 50g rocket, to serve Freshly ground black pepper For the tomato salsa: 350g cherry tomatoes, finely chopped ½ small red onion, finely chopped 1tsp tomato puree Pinch of crushed dried chillies Freshly ground black pepper
Lightly brush six 150ml ramekins with olive oil and coat with the polenta, shaking out any excess. Place the ramekins in a small roasting tin. Heat the oil and butter in a medium saucepan, stir in the flour and cook, stirring, for one minute. Remove from the heat and pour in the milk, a little at a time, stirring well until the mixture is smooth. Return the pan to the heat and cook, stirring constantly, until the mixture thickens and comes to the boil. Remove from the heat. Reserve one heaped tablespoon of the Parmesan and stir the rest into the mixture, with the mustard, then the soft cheese in small spoonfuls. Add the chives, season with pepper and leave to cool slightly. Meanwhile, make the salsa. Mix together the tomatoes, onion, tomato purée and crushed chillies. Season with pepper, cover and chill until ready to serve. Preheat the oven to 200°C (fan 180°C/gas mark 6). Beat the egg yolks into the cheese mixture. Whisk the egg whites to stiff peaks. Using a large metal spoon, fold a spoonful into the mixture to slacken slightly. Gently and evenly fold in the remaining whites, half at a time, keeping the mixture light and airy. Divide the mixture evenly between the ramekin dishes. Pour cold water into the roasting tin to come halfway up the sides of the dishes. Bake for 15-18 minutes until golden on top and risen. Carefully remove from the tin and leave to cool. The soufflés will sink as they cool. The souffles rise again when re-baked, and you can prepare them up to 24 hours in advance. If re-cooking, preheat the oven to 200°C (fan 180°C/gas mark 6) and remove the souffles from the fridge about 10 minutes before baking. Turn each out of its dish and place on a baking sheet lined with baking parchment. Sprinkle the reserved Parmesan over each souffle, then bake for 10 minutes or until risen. Scatter with chives. Serve each with a pile of salsa and rocket. Classic version/lighter per serving: kcals 275/175, fat 21.6g/10.6g, sat fat 12.5g/4g, salt 0.9g/0.5g.
taste test
A flavourful feast ៑ Ella Walker’s eyes prove bigger than her stomach at Cambridge’s Yim Wah Express.
W
E overestimated our capabilities by some stretch . . . I blame the fact it was a freezing Thursday night and I’d been shivering and daydreaming about crispy duck pancakes since breakfast time. My friend Louisa blamed the fact she’d been sitting on the commuter train from London with nothing else to think about except food. Combined, both these reasons spiralled into quite an epic order. Fortunately, our waitress at the Yim Wah Express is either very tactful or used to people getting carried away with the menu. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the latter. Having walked down Regent Street past a gaggle of very empty Chinese restaurants, turning into Yim Wah (it sits temptingly at that horrible junction on Lensfield Road), I was very pleased I’d booked – it was packed. There was a birthday party going on, students nibbling noodles and Chinese families (always a good sign) tucking in. That’s not to say it’s the most beautiful restaurant to hole up in: it’s functional and practical with wonderfully attentive staff and featherless ducks slowly cooking in the background. But it is warm, cosy, smells incredible and they don’t mind you chatting away
in the corner until closing time. Drinks-wise I played it safe with a coke – it is dry January after all – while Louisa opted for hot bubble tea (£3.50). Neither of us knew what it was, only that cool indie types order it at painfully chic cafés that make you feel out of your depth, so ended up spending a good five minutes trying to work out how it was made and what the purple, berry-like globules at the bottom of the glass were. It tasted a bit like very sweet chai, but it turns out the jelly bits were actually flavoured tapioca. It was good but definitely not the most refreshing drink. . . But then, who cares what you’re drinking when the mixed hors d’oeuvres are so good (£4.40 per person)?! We stopped discussing the merits of bubble tea (there is very little bubbly about it), as soon as a plate patchworked with ribs, satay chicken, seaweed, spring rolls and prawn toast arrived. The satay was nutty, the chicken all too happy and tender to melt in your mouth, the spring rolls crisp on the outside and fresh in the middle, the prawn toast nicely frazzled but minus the grease, and the seaweed was, well seaweed, but it was damn good. And the ribs? Oh, the ribs were delicious. Sweet and soft and glazed and ohh. . . they made me seriously regret not ordering a whole portion.
Yim Wah Express, 2-4 Lensfield Road, Cambridge Telephone: (0122 3) 309530 Email: info@yim wahexpress. co.uk Opening hours: 11.30am10pm daily Cost: Dinner for two people, including drinks, came to £52.10. Disabled access :* Food: 刀刀刀刀 刀 Service: 刀刀刀 刀刀 Atmosphere: 刀 刀刀刀 Value: 刀刀刀刀
But had I done that, I’d have missed out on the crispy aromatic duck, which would have been a travesty (£10.20). Perfectly papery pancakes topped with salty dollops of hoisin, strips of cucumber and crumbly moist duck and crispy, shredded skin – it was the best bit of the evening, hands down. Sadly, we tried to follow it up with a healthier main (kind of). Beef crispy noodles (£7.50) swam in a mushroomy sauce alongside a ‘let’s be good’ vegetable side dish. Now, pak choi is a fairly recent discovery of mine. Crisp and bright green, it’s addictive dunked in soy sauce, but in garlic sauce a la Yim Wah (£7) I struggled. The stems had gone a tad soggy and I had to scrape off the excess garlic (there was a lot – A LOT), which was disappointing, but Louisa had no complaints so perhaps I just picked the wrong side of the plate. Or it was that the beef and vegetables paled when compared to the sweet and sour chicken (£8.20) and the special fried rice (£5). The chicken was slathered in stickily sweet sauce and paired with snappy chunks of onion, green pepper and pineapple for bite, and the rice, crammed with prawns, peas and veg could have stood alone as a meal in itself. And I love rice, mainly because I spend too much of my time lamenting the fact I just can’t cook it properly at home; my own attempts swerve between claggy, soggy, sludgy and um, burnt. So Yim Wah, I know where I’ll be coming to get my rice fix in future.