In (of all places) the "Desserts" chapter of his seminal cookbook Simple French Food*, the great food writer Richard Olney casually drops this recipe onto the page for your consideration, buried in an introductory paragraph for a recipe for Pets de Nonnes or "Nuns' Farts". The concept of savory choux-paste buns, he says, comes originally from Burgundy
Wherever it comes from, it absolutely works. Crispy on the outside, delicately textured on the inside and gooey with melted cheese, and with a spicy kick of cayenne to top it all off, gougére is one of the very best things to have with wine, and it's quick and easy to make.
First of all, you'll need:
- 4 eggs
Take them out of the fridge and leave them out for an hour or so to come up to room temperature.
When they're warmed up, preheat your oven to 200 degrees C / 400 degrees F, and find a nonstick baking sheet or prepare a regular one with a sheet of baking parchment. (Or you can just grease it lightly or dust it with non-stick spray.)
Then gather your other ingredients:
- 125g / 4 ounces flour
- 250 ml / 8 fluid ounces water
- 75 g / 2 1/2 ounces butter
- Pinch of salt
- 200g / 6 ounces Gruyere or Emmenthal cheese, cut into tiny cubes (1/3 – 1/4 inch across)
- 1/4 – 1/2 tsp of cayenne or chili powder, to taste and for garnish
- 1/8 tsp of coarse salt to garnish
Cube the cheese and set it aside. Measure out the other ingredients and have them ready (as you're not going to have time for this when you actually start making the dish). Also have ready a wooden spoon or other heavy stirring spoon that's comfortable in your hand, because you're about to do several minutes of heavy-duty mixing.
The heart of this recipe is the pâte à choux or choux paste. This is the secret behind éclairs, profiteroles and many other sweet treats from the French patisserie repertoire. It's easy to be a little intimidated by the concept, but once you've made it yourself and seen how easy and quick it is to make, you won't be bothered by choux paste's reputation any more.
First: Find a heavy-bottomed saucepan, put the water in it, salt the water and bring it to a boil.
Once it's boiling, add the butter. Boil until the butter is completely melted.
Now pull the pan off the heat and throw in the flour, all at once. Start stirring, hard, until it's all incorporated. Then put the pan back on the heat and keep stirring hard. You want to get this mixture to the point where it pulls away from the sides of the pan and gathers together in a sort of clump or ball. (Olney says that you're looking for that ball to have a "sweaty, shiny aspect.")
Pull the pan off the heat again. Squish the ball of paste down with the spoon to create a sort of well in it, and crack in the first egg (or slide it in if you've cracked your eggs beforehand). Start beating the mixture again until the egg has become completely combined with it. Don't dawdle over this, as you're counting on the residual heat in the pot and the paste to cook the eggs. Add the next egg and repeat the process: and the next, and then the final egg.
When all the eggs have been combined into the choux paste, quickly stir in about three-quarters of the cubed cheese and almost all of whatever seasoning you've chosen. (Cayenne is more traditional: paprika will work too if you prefer a slightly milder version of the gougére.)
There are now a couple of different ways to proceed. The traditional one is to make a ring of gougére puffs on the baking sheet, by dropping big spoonfuls of the paste mixture onto it in a circle. But you can create separate puffs if you prefer. (Be aware that separate puffs may bake a little more quickly, so you'll need to keep an eye on them in the oven if you opt for this method.) If you feel like going to this much trouble, you can also pipe the gougére mixture onto the baking sheet if you have a piping nozzle big enough to pass any cheese cubes that haven't melted from the heat of the choux paste.
In any case, once the mixture has been spooned or piped onto the baking sheet in whatever configuration you prefer, scatter the remaining cheese cubes over the ring or puffs and press them in gently. Then dust with the remaining cayenne, paprika or chili powder. Finally sprinkle a little coarse salt over the gougére.
When all this has been done, get your gougére into the oven. The "ring" form of gougére is normally baked for about 40 minutes in a conventional oven. (It might be more like 30 or 35 minutes if you have a fan oven: keep your eyes open for signs of scorching.) Single puffs also may take only 30 minutes or so — the smaller they are, the less time they'll take.
At the end of your baking time, the gougére will have gone a glossy toasty brown. Put it on a rack to cool just briefly. Then pull it apart and enjoy with wine. (Or other beverages, of course… but wine with these is sublime.)
(Wow, there's also a Kindle edition of this. Who knew.)