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Cheese Souffles
Put two tablespoonfuls of butter in a saucepan and one heaping tablespoonful of flour; when smooth, add one teacupful of milk, one-half teaspoonful of salt and a little cayenne pepper, and cook for two minutes; then add the well-beaten yolks of three eggs and one breakfast cupful of grated cheese, and set it one side to cool. After it is cold, add the whites, beaten to a stiff froth, turn into a buttered dish, and bake for about thirty minutes, then serve immediately.
A plain béchamel-based soufflé, written when a cook was assumed to know what oven to use. The measurements are period cup names and the oven is left entirely to your judgment.
- The hinge: cool the baseThe instruction to "set it one side to cool" is the whole technique. Folding stiff whites into a warm cheese sauce slackens them and the soufflé will not climb. The base should be at room temperature and thick enough to hold a spoon mark.
- Teacupful and breakfast cupfulA teacup is roughly 6 fl oz, so about 3/4 cup of milk. A breakfast cup is larger, 8 to 10 fl oz; for grated cheese that works out to roughly 3 to 4 oz by weight, depending on how finely it is grated.
- Oven temperatureNo heat is given. Bake at 375F; thirty minutes at that temperature suits a single dish of about a quart. Individual ramekins will be done in 15 to 18 minutes.
- The cheeseThe recipe names no cheese. A dry, sharp cheese such as Parmesan or a hard aged Cheddar suits it best; a young, high-moisture cheese releases fat and water and will weigh the mixture down.
- Buttered dishThe recipe asks only for a buttered dish. Many cooks also dust it with grated Parmesan or fine crumbs, on the reasoning that the coating gives the batter something to grip as it rises.
- Folding the whitesStir a spoonful of whites into the base to loosen it, then fold in the rest in two additions with a spatula. Streaks of white are less damaging than a deflated mixture.
- Serve immediatelyTaken literally. A cheese soufflé begins to sink within two or three minutes of leaving the oven, so have the plates and the diners ready before it comes out.
- YieldAs written this fills one 1-quart dish and serves four as a first course, or two as a light supper with salad.
Oscar Tschirky ran the dining rooms of the Waldorf and later the Waldorf-Astoria from 1893, and his 1896 Cook Book collected the working repertoire of a large American hotel kitchen at a moment when that repertoire was thoroughly French. Soufflé is simply the past participle of souffler, to blow or puff, and the dish had been a fixture of French professional cooking since the early nineteenth century, a spread often linked to the arrival of reliable enclosed ovens, though the connection is inference rather than documented fact. What makes this version characteristic of its book is the shorthand: no oven temperature, no dish size, no cheese named, because it was written down for cooks who needed only the proportions.