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Cheese Souffle
rianned for a 2 tablespoons butter 2 tablespoons flour 1/2 cup scalded milk 1/2 teaspoon salt Dash of red pepper 1/4 cup grated cheese 3 eggs Melt the butter and mix thoroughly with the flour; then add the hot milk gradually and the salt, red pepper and cheese. Remove from the fire and add the beaten yolks. Cool the mixture; fold in the beaten whites; pour into a buttered baking dish and cook about twenty minutes in a slow oven. Serve at once or the soufflé will not be light.
A small, straightforward cheese soufflé built on a thick béchamel base. The quantities are modest, so the timing is short and the margin for overbaking is narrow.
- The hinge: fold, don't stirBeat the whites only to soft, glossy peaks and fold them into a base that is barely warm, in two additions. A base still hot from the pan will slacken the whites and the soufflé will not rise.
- "Slow oven"That means about 300-325F. A soufflé this small in a hotter oven will set a crust before the centre expands.
- Twenty minutes is a starting pointAt 325F, 20 minutes will leave a soufflé of this size still soft in the middle. If you prefer it set through, allow 25-30 minutes and judge by a top that is domed, browned and only slightly wobbly.
- Red pepperThis is cayenne, not paprika and not sweet pepper. A dash means a pinch on the tip of a knife; it sharpens the cheese rather than making the dish hot.
- The cheeseA quarter cup of grated cheese is a light hand. Use a dry, well-aged cheddar or a hard grating cheese so the flavour carries; pre-shredded cheese carries anti-caking starch that can make the base grainy.
- Scalded milkScalding is usually explained as a holdover from the days of unpasteurised milk. It is no longer necessary, but warming the milk before it goes into the roux still helps the sauce come together smoothly.
- Dish and yieldThis makes two servings, or three small ones. A 1-quart straight-sided dish, buttered and dusted with grated cheese or fine crumbs, gives the mixture something to climb.
- Serve immediatelyThe instruction is not decorative. A soufflé begins to fall within a minute or two of leaving the oven, so have the table ready before it comes out.
The soufflé is French in name and method, from souffler, to blow or puff, and depends on nothing more exotic than a flour-thickened sauce lightened with beaten whites -- a technique long established in English-language cookbooks before this one. That it is made here with half a cup of milk and a quarter cup of cheese says a good deal about the scale of the domestic-science kitchen: precise, economical, and calculated for a small family table.