Cheese Souffle!
Today, I made cheese souffle, which is really much easier than everyone thinks. It's okay. Don't be scared!
The recipe I used today is a variation on the one in Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child. My mother-in-law sent me a pristine copy of the 1969 edition she found at a library fundraising sale. I, of course, will dog-ear it and get food on it. But I think Julia would prefer to sign a book that's crusty and has obviously been used than one where the spine hasn't even been broken.
Okay, here we go.
Equipment you'll need: A small pot, whisk, ramekins, rubber spatula, a larger bowl and something to whip egg whites with. I use my Kitchenaid stand mixer to whip the egg whites because my children left my hand mixer in the yard and Gibson the Dog chewed it up.
Ingredients are: 6 ounces of grated cheddar, about a 1/4 cup of parmesan, five eggs that will be separated, 3 tablespoons of butter, 3 tablespoons of flour, 1 cup of milk and salt and pepper to taste.
First, you'll want to get your ingredients prepped and ready to go. Separate your eggs, you need FOUR yolks and FIVE whites. An easy way to do this is to scrub your hands clean and just crack an egg into your hand. Let the whites run through your fingers until just the yolk is resting in your hand. Place the yolk in one bowl and transfer the white to a third bowl. Yes, it's a lot of dishes but if you break part of a yolk into the whites while separating your last egg you'll be pissed and perhaps go to the store for more eggs. The extra bowl is worth preventing that heartache.
Rub butter inside the ramekins and then sprinkle with parmesan and get it all over the butter. This is the same as greasing and flouring a baking pan.
Get your cheese grated up and then preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Melt the butter in a saucepan over low heat, don't let it burn. Because burned food isn't that tasty.
Add in your flour and stir it all up until it's smooth. Bring this up to a boil and keep stirring it so it won't brown. This is a roux, a thickener added to liquid. Since we're making a white sauce, we won't cook the roux until it gets a color. Once the stuff has bubbled, cook and stir until you can't smell the flour anymore.
Whisk in the milk then bring the whole thing up to a boil. (Julia says add boiling milk to the roux, but I've been instructed that you add cold liquid to a hot roux. If I were to add a hot liquid to a hot roux it would make my instructor's eyes itch, so I added cold milk. )Lower the heat and cook this until it gets thick, this shouldn't take very long. If you were to add a quarter of an onion with half a bay leaf tacked onto it with a clove and let it simmer for about half an hour you'd have a bechamel sauce.
At this point you'll add in the egg yolks one at a time. Really whisk after you add in each egg yolk until they are all combined into the almost bechamel. At this point, I stirred in half the shredded cheese and let it melt. Set this aside to cool a little while.
Whip the egg whites into stiff peaks. They should hold their shape without any fold over.
Transfer the egg yolk, sauce, cheese stuff to a big bowl and fold in about a third of the whites.
Add the rest of the cheese and fold it in.
Fold in the rest of the egg whites until there are no white streaks or pockets of whites. Everything should be evenly distributed.
Pour the eggy stuff carefully into the ramekins and put them into your oven. You don't have to baby them too much, but don't slam the oven door or punch it or anything like that. No violence against the souffle! Watch an episode of Paranormal State on Netflix and then check on the souffles through the oven window. Don't open the door!
If they have puffed up and gotten brown you're ready for brunch! These little ramekins get VERY hot so put them on a plate to serve them.
The Greatest Daughter in the World loves these!
Now, get someone else to do dishes.
See ya!
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