Basic Cheese Soufflé

Soufflés often seem complicated but they are rather easy to make when one preparesoneself and the kitchen properly.Well, I say that because I’ve made them for years.READ THE WHOLE THING FIRST… it will save you grief.

Kitchen utensils needed:

Measuring Cup and measuring spoonsA whisk –

or a hand that won’t quit

Oven

(preheated to 350. Make sure to check that your oven actually works at 350 whenset on the temperature. The older the oven is, the more likely the discrepancy, the easier it is to over or undercook food.)

Those electric whipping things –

you know the ones.. they whip things with two beaters. Perhaps called an egg beater? What are they called? Anyway, you’ll needsomething to whip your eggs until they are firm.

A large bowl –

for whipping the eggs

A small bowl –

for separating the egg whites so as not to lose all the previously separatedones should you mess up and let the egg yoke drop.

A medium sized bowl –

for the ‘sauce’

An oven friendly soufflé dish

– i.e. something that is at least 5inches deep, 8-incheswide

Either a non-stick frying pan

a microwave

Ingredients:

Two and one half Tablespoons of butter Two and one half Tablespoons of all purpose flour 1 1/4 cups milk 1/4 cup dry white wine4-5 large egg yolks1 teaspoon salt1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper Pinch of cayenne pepper Pinch of ground nutmegOne diced clove of garlicCheese to taste: at least half cup, up to two cups, grated6-8 large egg whites

AT ROOM TEMPERATURE

(This takes a while, can place inwarm water to expedite, but don’t make hot. Cold = bad, hot = bad, room temperature =

perfect…

this is really, really important

) Take out 8, even if you only need 6, just incaseyou screw up one.Cornstarch

Optional Ingredients:

Green onions or scallions, finely chopped – to taste. Not too many, as the more you addthe more weight placed on the eggs.

Procedure:

If you are lazy (like me), or don’t have a non-stick frying pan, you can make your béchamel sauce in the microwave. It’s simple.1. Take your milk, keep it in the measuring cup, put in the two tablespoons of butter.2. Heat it until the butter melts in the microwave.3. Take it out, Get your whisk (or your fork and hand-that-won’t-quit) and slowly startdropping in some of the flour, pausing to stir it (violently stir it) into the liquid such thatyou have

no lumps

4. When you’re done stirring it in, put the cup back in the microwave… Heat it.I simply set my microwave on quick minute, and take it out every 10-30 secs to stir.

If you do not take it out to stir frequently, it will harden on the bottom.

TAKE IT OUT, STIR, REPLACE, REPEAT!Alternatively, you do that, but inside of a non-stick frying pan. It is somewhat harder tomake sure there aren’t lumps when doing it that way… but it is more “traditional”When it gets rather thick (or starts to rise in the microwave), its done. Put it into your medium sized bowl.

Add:

1/4 cup dry white wine1 teaspoon salt1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper Pinch of cayenne pepper Pinch of ground nutmegOne diced clove of garlicCheese to taste: at least half cup, up to two cups, grated

A note on cheese type / quantity:

Now, the whole cheese thing is rather complicated. If you’re just starting to makesoufflés, I wouldn’t use a lot of cheese – half a cup to cups worth. It makes the sauceheavy, which makes the egg whites struggle to rise, and instead of a nice airy soufflé, youend up with a weird quiche. The other thing is: you can use almost any cheese.

Par example: gruyere and parmesan, fribourg vacheron and gruyere, white aged cheddar (Isle of White cheese is phenomenal) and (hints) of romano. The big thing you want toavoid is wet, heavy and subtle cheeses.. i.e. havarti would be not so great a souffléchoice, likewise with brie, or with down market blue cheese.

The Eggs!

This is the most important part. Before you start, make sure: 1. Your oven is preheated.2. You have buttered your cooking dish. 3. You have prepared everything else and itsready to go, and most important: 4. Your eggs are ROOM TEMPERATURE. If they aretoo hot or too cold it will be harder to prepare them properly.Separate your eggs. 6 egg whites for smaller amounts of cheese, up to eight for larger amounts. Do this by splitting the egg over a smaller bowl, letting the egg white drip out, putting the egg yolks into the cheese sauce we’ve made already, and then adding the eggwhite from the smaller bowl into the larger bowl.If you drop things like egg shell in.. don’t worry too much. If you drop in a significantamount of yolk (like, anything more than 1/5 of 1 egg yolk), either ditch that egg white or add another egg white above your original number.When you’re done separating the eggs, you want to angle the bowl so that the egg beater thing is as immersed as it can be in the eggs. Then, you want to turn it on full blast.This is where the cornstarch comes in. If you put a small pinch in at the beginning, whenyou are whipping not before, as an emulcifier it will help to make the eggs firm. Firmeggs = good soufflé, soupy eggs = weird quiche.1.The eggs are firm.2.They “peak” i.e., when they are getting white and expanding, you put the beater down in the mass and it grows out from the whipping, it expands, but stops at acertain point.MORE WHIPPING IS NOT NECESSARILY BETTER. After a certain point, it juststarts breaking the air bubbles in the egg whites. Those air bubbles are your friends.They are what makes the soufflé rise.If it is soupy, and you don’t know what to do… add another egg white or two, andanother pinch or two of cornstarch. You’ve already come this far, so might as well go allout.

Time to bake, finally:

Take your bowl of firm egg whites, plop it into your pre-buttered dish. When I say plop… if it drops in in one big clump, you did really good. As long as it doesn’t pour out, you’re prolly safe. Next, stir in those egg yolks in the medium bowl, and carefully pour the sauce over top of the egg whites. What you’re going to want to do is “Fold” the