Back with a vengeance... "Weekend" Recipe(s) - 4/11/09 (and 4/12/09)

So I have two recipes for you, which I will compliment with the stories behind each. The first one comes (of course) from what is becoming my Bible, How to Cook Everything. And it is (dramatic music swell with drumroll) Chocolate Souffle!!! Huzzah! ...O_O... But really, here it is:

Vanilla or Chocolate Souffle
Makes: 4 to 6 servings
Time: About 1 hour, largely unattended

Undercook this souffle slightly so it remains moist in the middle and needs no sauce, then dust with confectioners' sugar. Or cook it until it's dry and serve it with Vanilla Custard Sauce (page 924), Whipped Cream (page 882), fruit puree (see page 923), or any light sauce.

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, plus 1 teaspoon for the dish
.5 cup sugar, plus more for the dish
1 cup milk
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped, or 1.5 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 eggs, separated
Pinch salt

1) Use 1 teaspoon of the butter to grease a 2-quart souffle dish or other straight-sided deep baking dish. (If you want to make individual souffles, use a little more butter and grease four 1.5 to 2-cup ramekins.) Sprinkle the dish with sugar, invert it, and tap to remove excess sugar. Set aside and heat the oven to 350*F.
2) Warm the milk in a small saucepan over low heat with the remaining .33 cup sugar. In a second saucepan, heat the remaining 3 tablespoons butter over medium-low heat. When the foam begins to subside, stir in the flour. Turn the heat to low and cook, stirring almost constantly, until the flour-butter mixture darkens, about 3 minutes.
3) Stir in the milk, a little bit at a time, using a whisk. It will be quite thick; stir in the chocolate if you're using it and remove from the heat. Let cool for 5 minutes. Beat the egg yolks and stir them in. Add the vanilla if you're using it. (At this point, you may cool the mixture, cover it tightly, and refrigerate for a few hours.)
4) Beat the egg whites with the salt until very stiff but still glossy. Stir a good spoonful of them thoroughly into the sauce to lighten it, then fold in the remaining whites, using a rubber spatula or your hand. Transfer to the prepared souffle dish(es) and bake until the center barely jiggles and is set, or nearly so, 30 to 40 minutes (15 to 25 minutes for individual souffles). Serve immediately.

Okay... I had heard enough to know that some cooks hate to bake souffles. They are supposed to be extremely fickle and difficult to cook. I had just about no problems when I cooked them a few days ago. The hardest thing for me was beating the egg whites and making the whipped cream with just a wire whisk (no electric mixer for me). I developed my own technique for it (which worked in the end, so know that it's not impossible to do), and learned tonight at work that there is supposedly a much easier way to do it. I can't wait to try out that technique. But anyway, with all I had heard about souffles, I feel that they really shouldn't be intimidating at all. It's one of those things that makes me feel like "Hey, maybe I really can get good at this." Check it out:

Here's one of the four souffles that I made. The taste was spot on, and the texture was what I expected. I'll learn eventually to time it just right so the surface doesn't dry out enough to crack like that. I'll worry about the aesthetics next time.

Here's the whipped cream. Heavy whipping cream, sugar, and cinnamon. Not too sweet, and the cinnamon really adds a great flavor.

So if I can produce a chocolate souffle in my tiny little galley kitchen with the minimalist equipment that I have, then I really just can't wait to see what I might be able to do with good tools and good ingredients in a professional kitchen. I know it's not the tools that make the chef, but I still intend to try end find out what I could do with those professional tools (or even, you know, just some basic kitchen essentials). But hey, maybe it's good for me to learn the basics with really crappy tools, so I'm pleasantly surprised how easy it is later. Random interjection, I've mentioned it before, but I'll say it again: Linecook 415 is an awesome blog. I'm currently listening to their most recent Podcast and it's hilarious. I hope they put out a new one soon. Anyway, a note about the actual souffle recipe. I had four Pyrex dessert bowls placed in the middle of the oven inside a 9x13 Pyrex casserole dish for stability. My oven thermometer was reading ever so slightly above 350*F, and I set the kitchen timer for 50 minutes. Three times I opened the oven because there is no internal light (so some heat naturally escaped). At 50 minutes, the tops were drier than the ones we serve at the restaurant and slightly cracked. The interior was just about perfect though. So what the recipe says about 15 to 25 minutes per souffle (which would have put me at an hour 4o) is wrong. If you have a clear oven door window and an internal light, you'll be able to judge for yourself much better when they're done. And a note to those who might be intimidated by certain recipes: Just go for it. Worst case scenario, you really screw the pooch and burn down your house or something. But really, what are the odds? Anyway, this post is kind of all over the place; I started last night after I got off work at 12:30 this morning, and got more distracted continuing it now with the podcast on in the background. So I'll post the second recipe tomorrow with the pictures from the results. So you know, it's one of my own personal recipes (I'm sure the idea has been done before, but I like the way mine tasted so I wrote it down and called it my own). Perfect for breakfast in my opinion. Last words: Happiness begins in the kitchen. Be bold!

Cheers,

-Peter

How to Cook Everything was copywrited in 2008 by Doubly B Publishing Inc., and published by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. in Hoboken, New Jersey. This representation of the text is intended for educational use only.