An elegant (yet easy) recipe for fluffy, tender cheese souffle baked inside tangy ripe tomatoes. Delightful to enjoy as a dinner party appetizer or side dish!
If making the prosciutto garnish, cut each slice into flour strips. Lay the prosciutto slivers on a baking sheet. Twist each piece if desired. Then broil for 1-2 minutes, until crispy. Set aside.
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Set out a 9 X 13 inch baking dish.
Cut off the tops off the tomatoes and scoop out the seeds and liquid. Drizzle olive oil in the bottom of the baking dish. Set the tomatoes in the dish, open side up, and gently press down to flatten out the bottoms (so they don’t roll over as the souffles rise.)
Separate the eggs, being careful not to get ANY yolk in the egg whites. Place the 4 whites in a medium bowl and add a pinch of cream of tartar. (This helps to stabilize the meringue, but is not absolutely necessary.) Use an electric mixer and a whip attachment to whip the egg whites into firm meringue. Set aside.
Set a large sauté pan over medium heat. Add the butter and flour. Whisk into a roux, and cook for 1 minute.
Whisk in the half and half, 2 egg yolks, and sherry. Whisk until smooth and slightly thickened. Then mix in the cheeses, Dijon mustard, garlic powder, salt and cayenne. Once all the ingredients are well incorporated and the cheese has melted, turn off the heat.
Use a rubber spatula to gently fold the meringue into the cheese mixture. Make sure it is well incorporated, but be careful not to deflate the meringue.
Spoon the soufflé mixture into the tomatoes. Bake for 25 minutes, until the cheese soufflés are bursting out of the tomatoes and golden on top.
Serve warm with a crispy prosciutto garnish on top.
Video
Notes
Pro Tip: Round tomatoes have a tendency to dump over as the cheese soufflés rise. There are several ways to address this… Press the tomato bottoms flat before baking. Make a double batch and stuff more tomatoes in the pan. Find a pan that the tomatoes fit tightly into, possibly a 9 X 9-inch pan. You can even make foil rings to set each tomato in to hold them straight. However, I find, if you flatten the bottom well, this usually fixes the problem.