Pumpkin-Gorgonzola Flans {FFwD}

September 27, 2010 at 9:50 pm (Around My French Table, Dorie Greenspan, French Fridays With Dorie)
Tags: Around My French Table, Custard, Dorie Greenspan, Flan, food processor, French cooking, French food, French Fridays With Dorie, Gorgonzola, pumpkin, walnuts

It happens every Fall. I get on a pumpkin kick. Actually, I love pumpkin enough that I cook and bake with it year-round. But there’s something about the weather changing around this time of year that always sends me to the store to stock up on canned pumpkin and has me scouring the Internet and my cookbooks for untried pumpkin recipes.

So, when I got my copy of Around My French Table, it was only natural that I turned to the Index and started looking at the pumpkin recipes. This recipe caught my eye right away. And I knew I couldn’t wait for French Fridays with Dorie to make it. So on a recent weekday evening, we had Pumpkin-Gorgonzola Flans for dinner.

This recipe is easy enough to whip up after work. The ingredients consist of pumpkin, eggs, heavy cream, salt, pepper, gorgonzola, and walnuts. You mix the first three ingredients in the food processor, season with salt and pepper, then pour the mixture into buttered custard dishes.

The recipe says that it makes six flans, and Dorie writes that she uses 6-ounce custard cups. My cups are also six ounces, but, as you can see, the custard mixture only filled four of them. I’m not sure why my results differed from the recipe.

Another difficulty I had with the recipe, besides the custard cup issue, was trying to balance the salt. After adding salt and pepper to the custard, I tasted it, added a bit more salt, and tasted again. It still seemed to be slightly under-salted, but I knew the gorgonzola would be salty, and I didn’t want to overdo it. I did sprinkle the flans with fleur de sel before putting them in the oven, both for appearance and for that final burst of flavor.

After filling the cups and adding the gorgonzola and walnuts, I baked the flans in a water bath for 35 minutes, until the custard was set and the cheese melted and bubbly.

Next came the nearly impossible task of waiting for the flans to come to just-warm temperature before eating them. I drizzled the tops with a touch of honey before serving.

My wife, who is not a big fan of French cooking (at least not yet, but I’m working on it), initially said she didn’t want a flan, but wanted to take a taste of mine. One taste was all it took, and she was hooked. Even though she had just had a few pieces of pizza, she ate her flan and declared it one of the best things she had ever tasted. And I would have to agree.

The mild flavor of the pumpkin custard paired perfectly with the tang of the gorgonzola and the slightly sweet finish of the walnuts. The salt level was perfect, and I was glad I had given it that final sprinkle of fleur de sel.

This is another winning recipe from Dorie’s new book. And I’m one step closer to making a French food lover out of my wife.