Alright today, we’re doing Cheese Souffle. It is not as hard as it looks. I know there’s an accent on it but don’t let that scare you. This is not a hard recipe. It starts with our basic Béchamel sauce, we’ve made that before, that’s on the side alright so you’re going to make a bit batch of Béchamel. That’s only half of batch, it’s a two-cup batch there. And to my half Béchamel, I turned off the head. I’m going to add four ounces by weight of grated gruyere cheese which is a really, really beautiful Swiss cheese. You can use a cheddar, any cheese like that will work. Monterey Jack if you want something a little mild, that’s a quarter cup of parmesan and take a quarter teaspoon of dry mustard.
Now again, if you’re writing this down, I don’t know why, go to foodwishes.com and the ingredients and extra instructions are there. So, into this hot Béchamel, you can stir a new cheese and about five minutes later, you’re going to have a cheesy Béchamel. And there’s some culinary term for that, I think it’s called—sauce. I called it cheesy Béchamel.
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees alright with this nice hot oven. Now, I’m going to make individual cheese souffles so I’m going to batter a ramekin, just some soft butte, make sure it’s all covered. Now, some people use bread crumb for this. I’m going to use some finely grated extra parmesan and I’m just going to top it around the inside so the inside is basically coated with butter and parmesan and that’s going to taste good, alright. So, do that to all your ramekins. I’m going to make six souffles with this size of batch. Now, here we go, very simple and I keep saying that but it is. Souffles are not hard.
So, take one cup of that cheesy Béchamel mixture. I’m going to use the other Béchamel for another recipe this week. You’re going to separate four eggs. Make sure there’s no yolk in the egg white, alright. There can be a little white in the egg yolk but no egg yolk in the egg white. I’ll just stir it into one cup of Béchamel cheese sauce, your four egg yolks. Now, that sauce again was just slightly warm, it was not still hot. Cold won’t work, hot won’t work, just warm or room temperature is fine. You’re going to whisk up your egg whites until they just become a beautiful meringue, okay.
Now, I’m using a copper bowl because well I’m not going to explain it because I really don’t understand it. But if you use copper, you’ll get just a little more volume—works but make sure you look up. You don’t want it too stiff. You want it to be what we called just kind of a stiff—where the meringue will kind of hold on the end of the whisk but if you over whipped it, it will actually start to separate and be a chunky and that doesn’t make very good souffle. So, you see how it looks there? Just do like I do.
Alright, take one-third of your egg white mixture which is just a foam. See, I do use foam sometimes, that’s inside your—you’re going to take one-third of your egg white foam and you’re going to stir it into your cheese Béchamel. Remember, it’s not hot, it’s not cold, it’s basically just room temperature, slightly warm. Now, what that first stir does, it basically just lightens it for the rest of the egg whites so you’re going to take the rest of the egg whites and you’re going to use the age-old folding method alright. Now, folding just means you’ll kind of take the spatula, you’re go into the center and you just turn and pull the butter up over the top and you just kind of do like what I’m doing there. Why am I explaining it? You’re watching it, alright. So, fold on the egg whites. And don’t be so scared. Stop being scared. Just mix them in. I’m not telling you to over mix them but people get so, “Oh, my God, did I over fold it?” No, you didn’t or maybe did. But you probably want, just fold it in until the egg white kind of disappears. You might just see little tiny streaks of egg white, that’s okay but you don’t want to be so paranoid that you just stir under—okay.
So now, you have this beautiful light, airy cheesy mixture. You’re going to spoon it carefully into your ramekins that will all go away to the top. Take about a half-inch from the top and this made six in fact, I kind of cheated, I could have made a seven until I’ve stretched it but this look better on the pan. I’m going to take a little bit of parmesan and it just does tops, just because it’s a little cooler and it bakes 12 to 15 minutes. It’s just a guide. Your ramekins might be bigger or smaller so kind of pick but when you’re done, oh my God, puffy, look at those. Now, they’re not going to stay like that for long okay.
If you want to impress your guests and get that “ohs” and the “ahs”, you got to literally run out to the dining room right now, take your tongs and throw one of this in everyone’s plate. But it’s okay so this is in its fully erect form, it’s—up here. But five minutes later, they’re still going to be hot, delicious. They’re just going to be kind of deflated a little bit but don’t you be deflated because they’re going to be so delicious, so, it’s just an amazing culinary experience I need you to try. You can do it, alright. Again, if you want to run to the table and serve it when it’s fully puffed, go ahead alright. But it really doesn’t matter because as long as you’re serving hot, they’re still going to be light and airy and delicious. And if you do actually serve them, run out and serve them fully puffed, then the gain just watch them fall so not a big deal anyway. What is a big deal is that you take a simple cheesy Béchamel, add some egg yolks and whipped up egg white and you have cheese souffle. Not hard, in fact very easy. Alright, please note I only used one cup of the Béchamel. I know I made a two cup batch there to be in with the cheese but I’m going to use that—this week. So anyway, give this a try and enjoy.
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