My Official Vet Entry (2) to "Noobs vs Vets" Season 2
Please accept my 2nd Farkanaut entry titled, "Julia bombs the Noobian hordes with cheese soufflé"!
I planned to do this cook on Friday afternoon, despite thunderstorms and a tornado watch our skies remained sunny and blue. Life just kept getting in the way, though, and despite my best efforts I wasn't able to and then the dark clouds rolled in. We didn't get a tornado but we did get some high winds. The branches of a black walnut tree above where my kamado used to be last year fell down, I moved the kamado to clear the area for a smoke shack build. The photo below is of a different black walnut tree about 350 metres/yards away from where my kamado is now. I allowed it to grow there to be a corner in the permaculture area I'm creating later. I'll cut it down and plant an oak and a chestnut tree as new corners. Good thing I didn't smoke my soufflé on Friday, the thump of the tree branches falling would have deflated my hard work.
I got the recipe and directions for this souffle from watching a Youtube video of Julia Child's "The French Chef" television series. Here's the video, it's hilarious!
[ame]http://youtu.be/IFAjJif7OoY[/ame]
Below are the ingredients. I didn't have milk so diluted 1/4 cup half and half with 5/4 water to get my 1 1/2 cups of milk.
First I separated the eggs from the whites -- a total of 6 yolks and 8 whites were needed.
I used a corning ware dish I already had, it was a little wider than what Julia used on the video but it worked well. It is buttered with grated cheese sprinkled on top of the butter, I chose Romano because that is my favourite grated cheese.
Next I made my béchamel sauce/thick white sauce. Started with a roux, eyeballed too much butter so put that aside and started fresh with a measured amount of butter to the measured flour. Really glad I started fresh because the sauce came out beautiful and exactly how Julia described it should be.
The egg yolks make it a beautiful yellow and thin the sauce which is why it's important to start with a very thick one. I kept the sauce warm by inserting the pot in a larger pot of hot water as Julia suggested and it made the mixing trouble-free.
Beat the whites in the mixer until they were glossy and just starting to stiffen. Added cream of tartar to the egg whites and 3 drops hot sauce, salt, a 'speck' of nutmeg and all but two tbsp of the grated Swiss cheese to the folded/combined sauce and egg whites. Sprinkled the reserved cheese on the cooking soufflé at 35 minutes when it was safe to do so.
Made a collar to contain the souffle's rise and buttered it so the souffle would not stick. Used a sewing needle to fasten the collar to itself.
Of all the days to have trouble getting my kamado up to 375'F! I overshoot my usual smoking temperature of 250'F all the time because I get sidetracked and don't check often enough. This day I checked temperatures every 10 minutes and had a lot of trouble passing 300. I had several other things on the go simultaneously and had to run out of the house in about an hour, not returning for about 11 hours. My kamado was only at 350, Julia's recipe called for 375, but since I had no time to do things differently and would be out of town most of Sunday, the last day of the TD, I put the souffle in Dragona's fiery belly and hoped for the best.
Here’s peeking through the top vent. I could only take one picture, my camera refused to take another, I think the vented air was too hot for it. You can see the sides climbing the collar and the middle lagging but still rising.
Here’s my very first soufflé successfully baked on my kamado!! Julia said I should poke the middle with a skewer to check for doneness, it should come out clean when poked into the middle and it did. :clap2:
Julia said souffle must be served immediately after coming out of the oven because every souffle will start to deflate as it cools. This is taken about 4 minutes after coming out of Dragon'a fiery belly and it's still quite high.
Please use the photo below for voting.
It was delicious!! Béchamel sauce in 'scrambled eggs with Swiss' really elevates the flavour! Carol made it very clear I am to make this cheese soufflé often.
Thanks for looking.
