Cheese Soufflé
2 tablespoons butter. 3 tablespoons flour. 1/2 teaspoon salt. ⅛ teaspoon ground mustard. 1/4 teaspoon paprika. 1/2 cup scalded milk. 1/4 cup grated American cheese.
Yolks 3 eggs beaten thick and light.
Whites 3 eggs beaten stiff.
PROCESS: Melt butter in a saucepan; add flour mixed with seasonings, stir to a smooth paste and add gradually scalded milk, stirring constantly. Add grated cheese and when cheese is melted remove from range; add yolks of eggs and continue beating, then cut and fold in the whites of eggs. Turn mixture into a well-greased, one-quart baking dish and bake in a moderate oven twenty minutes. Serve at once.
A small, straightforward cheese soufflé built on a thick white sauce. It serves three or four as a light course, and it will not wait.
- Oven temperatureThe recipe gives no number; "moderate oven" in period usage is generally taken as somewhere around 350-375F. Twenty minutes at that heat suits a one-quart dish; the souffle is done when it is set at the edges and barely trembles at the centre.
- American cheeseAt this period the name meant plain firm factory cheddar, not the processed slices sold under the name today. Use a sharp or medium cheddar, grated fine so it melts into the sauce without oiling.
- The base proportionsThe butter and flour amounts are not preserved in this text. A sauce of this style would normally use roughly equal parts butter and flour by volume to a half cup of milk, giving a paste stiff enough to carry three yolks.
- Scalded milkMilk was commonly scalded before the days of routine pasteurisation, partly to delay souring. With modern milk it is optional, though warm milk still blends into the roux more smoothly.
- Cool the base before the yolksTake the pan off the heat as soon as the cheese melts and let it lose its fiercest heat before the yolks go in, or they will scramble in threads through the sauce.
- Cut and fold"Cut and fold" is the whole hinge of the dish: lighten the base with a spoonful of the whites first, then fold the rest in with a broad motion, stopping while a few streaks still show. Stirring it smooth costs you the rise.
- Do not grease and fill in advanceThe dish is simply greased, with no crumb or sugar coating called for. Have the oven at temperature before the whites are beaten, and get it in at once.
- Serve immediatelyThe instruction is literal. A soufflé of this size begins to sink within two or three minutes of leaving the oven.
History: Souffles reached American cookbooks through nineteenth-century French cooking, and by the turn of the century the cheese souffle was a familiar set piece in home cookery -- cheap in ingredients, unforgiving in handling. A hot, eggy, meatless dish of this kind suited spring, when eggs and milk were plentiful. The reliance on "American cheese" is a marker of the period too, when domestic factory cheddar was widely available and inexpensive.