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Melted Cheese
1144. Take two ounces each of good Cheshire and of Parmesan cheese, grate them, and add about double the weight of each in beaten yolks of eggs and melted butter; mix them well together, add pepper and salt to the taste, and then put to it the white of the eggs, which have been beaten separately; stir them lightly in, and bake it in a deep dish filled but half full, as it will rise very much. Serve when quite hot.
This is a cheese souffle in its oldest, simplest form: no flour, no milk, nothing but cheese, eggs and butter. It rises on beaten whites alone and falls quickly, so have the table ready before it goes in the oven.
- The hinge: fold, do not stirThe whites are the only leavening. Beat them to soft, glossy peaks and cut them into the yolk-and-cheese base in two or three additions, stopping while streaks are still visible. Overworking here is the difference between a risen dish and a dense one.
- The ambiguous ratio"About double the weight of each" can be read as 4 oz of yolks and 4 oz of butter, or as 8 oz of each. The first reading is the workable one: roughly 4 oz (about 6 large yolks) and 4 oz melted butter to 4 oz total grated cheese. Even that is very rich by modern taste, and cutting the butter to 2 oz gives a lighter result.
- Oven heatNo temperature is given. A hot-but-not-fierce oven, 375-400F, for 20-30 minutes suits a dish of this size; the top should be well browned and the centre barely set.
- Half full means half fullFollow this literally. With no flour to hold it, the mixture climbs well above the rim and then collapses if crowded. Use a buttered, straight-sided dish large enough that this quantity of mixture comes only half way up it.
- Cheshire cheeseCheshire is a crumbly, faintly salty cow's milk cheese still made in England. If you cannot find it, Lancashire or a young crumbly white Cheddar behaves similarly. Grate the Parmesan as finely as possible so it disperses in the butter rather than sitting in threads.
- SaltParmesan and Cheshire are both salty and there is no starch or milk to dilute them. Season the base, taste it before the whites go in, and expect to need very little added salt.
- Yield and servingEnough for three or four as a savoury course or a light supper dish. "Serve when quite hot" is not a flourish: carry it straight from the oven to the table, since it begins to sink within a couple of minutes.