Foods Falsely Feared: Souffle

There are certain foods that people will avoid making without ever having tried, or even read a recipe. Whether because it has a reputation for taking a long time to make, being particularly difficult in required technique, or just having a general air of requiring years of training to get right, people avoid making them like they will explode if done improperly.

Souffle is probably the best example of this. It is a dish that is beautiful in its simplicity, and demonstrates perfectly culinary aesthete which sits opposite to the over-the-top-must-be-huge-with-every-ingredient-possible-plus-bacon aesthete that seems popular right now. Whether savory or sweet, souffle is easy and pretty quick to make.

Cheese souffle, aka Friday's dinner

There are two keys to making good souffle. Firstly, organize your ingredients. Have everything measured and ready to go before you start anything involving heat or egg whipping. It takes maybe 5 minutes if you grate your cheese by hand, and it means that the souffle itself comes together in another 5-8 minutes. Secondly, just leave it alone in the oven. Loud noises, banging doors, small earthquakes do not deflate souffles. Opening the oven door and the subsequent drop in temperature, leading to a drop in steam pressure inside the souffle, makes it deflate. It literally just needs to be left alone for the time it takes to cook.

A side benefit of learning to make a souffle is that you learn how to make a bechamel and a Mornay sauce, Mornay being bechamel with cheese mixed in. Once you learn how to make Mornay sauce, you can make baked Mac'n'cheese, lightyears better than the box stuff. You can also work on your folding technique, which opens a whole new world of cakes, pastries and dishes.

For a savory souffle, you don't need to serve it with much more than a small side salad, something light and cool to balance the richness and heat of a cheese souffle right out of the oven. You need about 1.5 oz of hard cheese, such as cheddar or gruyere, an egg, 2 tsp of flour, 2 tsp of butter, a splash over a quarter cup of milk, and seasoning to taste per serving, plus butter and ground parmesan cheese to coat your baking dish with. You probably have these things in your fridge any given night of the week.

Chocolate souffles are even simpler. Melted chocolate and sugar are whisked into beaten egg yolks, and whipped egg whites are folded in.

Variations are nearly limitless. So long as you can turn your flavor base into a thick, egg yolk enriched sauce, you can probably make a souffle so long as it doesn't have too many chunky things. Once you have the technique down, this is a dish that lends itself to experimentation.

So go ahead! Look up a recipe, dig one out of a cookbook. Even if the first couple don't rise to prodigious heights, they are guaranteed to taste good.

~AMPH