Savory Flan: Miso, Scallions, Goat Cheese

Hello Everyone! Sorry I haven't posted for a while, I've been caught up on my other blog which is about books and have been neglecting my little foodie blog. While I have been doing a lot of cooking and baking and eating, catching up on all of it would take forever, so I'll start with today and try to be better at posting from now on.

The way I came up with the idea with this recipe is that I was recently on vacation in Italia (talk about amazing food - I could not believe how much gluten free pasta there was!) and at more than one place there were savory flans on the menu. That got me started so I looked around at what I had in the house and found I had - among other things - Miso, scallions, and an unopened pack of goat cheese. I've made sweet flan before, but never savory, so I knew the gist of it, but checked several different online sources just to get references and what I found was it's pretty much the same thing, just different flavors and no sugar. Below is the recipe and beneath that are my thoughts about how it turned out.


Ingredients

2 Cups Milk
3 Eggs
1 Egg Yolk
2 Tablespoons Miso
3 Stalks of Scallions
1 1/2 Tablespoons Goat Cheese

(Serves Six)

1. Combine milk and miso in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring constantly until the miso is fully dissolved.

2. Finely chop scallions, add with the goat cheese and blend in the food processor until very fine.

3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit and put a kettle of water on to boil. Place six custard cups in a baking pan and be sure the oven has a rack in the center.

4. Strain the miso/milk mixture into a small bowl

5. In a medium bowl combine eggs and egg yolk and add in the ground scallions and goat cheese.

6. Slowly stir in the milk mixture, let stand for a few minutes, and then pour the mixture equally between the cups.

7. Pour the boiling water into the baking pan so it comes up halfway on the custard cups and place in the oven until the flan is set (appx. 30 min.)

8. Serve hot or cold. Remove by moving a butter knife along the edge of the cup.

I was fairly happy with how this first draft of the recipe turned out. My favorite thing about this recipe was how the miso flavor came out. It dissolved into the milk so well and the flavor wasn't overpowering at all, but was mellow and definitely noticeable throughout the flan. The goat cheese that I used was extremely mild, so the amount I used was not enough for me to really taste, so if I did it again I would either use a stronger cheese, double the amount or a mix-match of both. One other thing I might try to tweak was the food processor didn't grind up the scallions as well as I had hoped and the pieces all floated to the top (or the bottom as was the case when I flipped out the flan) It wasn't awful, but I would like a more consistent texture in the future and a more evenly distributed flavors - any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

In case you're wondering where I got my initial sweet flan recipe, I found it here: