Take your passion(fruit) and make it happen (for Chris)

Occasionally, you'll see these kind of dull looking, purple eggs in the fruit section of the supermarket. You may think they're plums, until you pick one up and see how light it is. And then when you see what they cost, you'll think they're the most expensive plums in the world.

Well, they ain't. What you got in your hand is a passionfruit. Or, in Hawaiian, a lilikoi (and I think Chris should think of changing his name to Lilikoi. It may very well suit).

I love working with passion fruit. They're interesting because you can't use them until they look like they're rotten. If you take a perfectly smooth, beautiful passionfruit and cut into it and eat the pulp, you'll probably spit it out and try to brush your teeth about seven times. Even when they're nice and wrinkled and collapsed, you ain't gonna experience any kind of sweetness. These guys are TART.

Theoretically, they get their name because the flowers of the vine on which they grow is reminiscent of Christ's passion. Ok, fine. I've seen the flowers and I don't get it, even though it's been explained to me a zillion times. I keep on asking "can you fry the flowers?' and I get a look like I've just challenged the primacy of the Pope (who's visiting NY this week. I think I saw him in Saks an hour or so ago, buying a hat. Not really. )

So, anyway, what do you do with them? Well, they are indigenous to Australia and for a very proper and correct pavlova, that wonderful dessert of sweetened meringues and fruit, you finish by cutting open a passion fruit and pouring the pulp (which is orange yellow) and the seeds (which are dark purple and plentiful), over the whole thing. The sweetness of the meringue plays against the sour of the passion fruit, and it works beautifully.

I used them to make souffles. Remember my rant about souffles? Well, this dessert came out of that rant. Having gotten on my soap box and yelled about how easy souffles are, I thought I'd best put my money where my passion fruit is. (Careful guys). And it worked. The recipe is an adaptation of one from Alice Waters, and it's pretty easy. Hope you like it. This is the proportions for eight. Change them as you need to.

First, if you try to get enough passion fruit pulp to make this from whole fruit, you will be ready to kill me. You can buy passion fruit pulp. Do it for this. You'll need 3/4 of a cup of it, which you mix with 1/2 cup of sugar, and then four egg yolks. Mix this all up and put it aside. In fact, you could do this a day ahead of time, and save the whites, which you're going to use as well, together with three other whites (you're going to use the three extra yolks to make something else. Be patient).

Okay, so you've mixed up the passion fruit stuff. Now, you're gonna get ready to make the souffles. First, get eight ramekins. They should hold five or six ounces, no more than that. In a step that at first sounds counterintuitive to souffle making, butter them thoroughly. BUT... (hee hee), now coat them completely with granulated sugar. The easiest way to do this is to get a deep bowl of sugar and just dip the ramekins in, and then pour the sugar back out. Put these on a baking sheet, and start preheating your oven to 450.

Get a big sturdy mixer ready. Combine a tablespoon of cornstarch, a teaspoon of cream of tartar, if you have it, and a dash of salt , with your seven egg whites. Begin beating, and have half a cup of sugar handy. When the egg whites begin to get frothy, increase the speed, and start adding the sugar, gradually. Keep on adding it until you've added it all, andthen increase the speed to very high. Keep on beating until you get fairly stiff peaks. This may take a while, perhaps five minutes. When that's done, fold the passion fruit mixture in. Be gentle, and try not to deflate the egg whites too much.

Divide the mix amongst the eight ramekins. Now, the most important step of the recipe. Run your finger around the rim of the ramekins to make them clean. Why? Because if you don't, they will bake unevenly, and the souffle won't rise. Put the tray into the oven and bake for nine minutes.

NO PEEKING. I'm very serious about this. And after nine minutes, you will be rewarded with these marvelously puffy, slightly brown, miracles. You'll want to serve these right away.

If you want to gild the lilly, serve these with creme anglaise. Creme anglaise is basically melted or unfrozen ice cream. The basic recipe "is what it is," and I'm going to present it here with the orange variation I made. You can figure out other ways to do it.

Heat up two cups of milk with a quarter cup of sugar. Have those three extra egg yolks ready. When the milk is warm, pour a bit of it into the egg yolks and mix, and then pour everything back into your pot, and cook until the milk and eggs thicken. It happens pretty quickly, and it's very clear when it does, but if you really need assurance, get a thermometer and cook, stirring, to 175.

What I do at this point is to add the peel, in big pieces of one orange. Then I cover the pot and let it steep for twenty minutes before I refrigerate it. I leave the peels in to intensify the orange flavor, but I pull it out before I pour it into small bowls to serve along side the souffle. You break into the souffle and pour in the creme, and you've got dessert.

I will say this: I always watch and listen when people eat my desserts. There was total silence, and total concentration over this one.

You can substitute other purees here. I'm looking ahead to summer and apricots, and I'm beginning to wonder if I can pull this off with strawberries and rhubarb. Stay tuned.

And Chris, this is for you, for calling it out as your new favorite dessert. Love you lots. Hope I get to make it for you again.