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Peanut Souffle
1 tablespoon butter 6 tablespoons flour 3/4 cup peanut butter 1 1/2 teaspoons salt Few drops lemon-juice 1 1/2 cups scalded milk 4 eggs Melt the butter and add the flour, peanut butter and seasoning. Cook for three minutes, stirring constantly. Add scalded milk, and continue cooking until the mixture reaches the boiling-point. Remove from the fire, pour the hot mixture over the well-beaten egg-yolks, mixing them in well. Cool, and fold in the egg-whites that have been beaten until stiff and dry. When the ingredients are thoroughly combined, place in a baking-dish, set in a pan of water in a moderate oven (350 degrees F.), and bake thirty minutes. Serve immediately. This dish is a good luncheon dish but, because of its texture, should have something crisp or solid served with it.
A straightforward baked souffle from the era when peanut butter was promoted as a meat substitute. The proportions are unusual: very little butter for six tablespoons of flour, with the peanut butter itself supplying the fat.
- The hingeFold the whites in only after the peanut base has cooled to barely warm. A hot base deflates stiff whites on contact and the souffle will bake dense rather than risen.
- OvenThe recipe gives 350F, which is accurate for a moderate oven. The water bath keeps the edges from setting before the centre climbs, so do not skip it; hot water halfway up the dish is right.
- Peanut butterUse a plain unsweetened peanut butter. Modern sweetened, hydrogenated brands push the dish toward dessert; natural grind-your-own is closest to what was meant, though it needs stirring to reincorporate the oil.
- Roux textureSix tablespoons flour with one tablespoon butter will not form a normal roux. Expect a stiff, sandy paste; cook it the full three minutes over low heat to lose the raw flour taste, then add the milk gradually to avoid lumps.
- Whites "stiff and dry"Period phrasing for firm peaks. Taken literally, dry whites are overbeaten and break into curds that will not fold in smoothly. Stop when the peaks hold and still look glossy.
- SaltA teaspoon and a half is a lot alongside salted peanut butter. Taste the base before the eggs go in and hold back if it is already seasoned.
- Dish and yieldA 1.5-quart souffle dish or straight-sided baking dish should suit roughly this quantity, probably serving about four as a luncheon main. The recipe gives thirty minutes; check that the centre is set but still slightly moist.
- ServingThe note about something crisp is sound. Toast, crackers, celery or a raw salad cut the density of a peanut-and-egg base.
Peanut butter entered American cooking as a sanatorium and health-reform food in the 1890s, and by the 1920s it was a common protein in meatless cookery, where such dishes were often expected to be as substantial as the roast they replaced. The souffle was one fashionable vehicle: it made a spoonable lunch course out of an ingredient otherwise largely confined to sandwiches. The closing advice to serve something crisp alongside reflects a genuine problem with the form, since egg-thickened nut pastes are uniformly soft from first bite to last.