Souffles have always seemed really intimidating until I watched a video of my hero Jacques Pepin make his Mother's recipe. It's a breeze! Here is Maman's Souffle! (that's French for mother, get it?)
This recipe uses a gratin dish rather than a souffle dish. The gratin baking dish is wider and flatter which allows for more surface area for crispy, cheesy goodness of the top and edges. It also uses whole eggs and not just whites made into a meringue which is why this is such an easy user friendly recipe!
Preheat your oven to 400.
Assemble your supplies and ingredients. I like to grate my cheese, measure out ingredients, do my chopping etc at this point, then you can just go for it!
Now, don't get scared but I altered this recipe:
The recipe called for Gruyere Cheese- I used Jarlsberg Cheese - a nice nutty swiss type melty cheese. The recipe used 5 extra large eggs, I used 6 because I did not have extra large eggs.
The recipe used Chives, I finely chopped up about a 1/2 cup of Lacinato Kale, spinach would also be nice
The recipe uses whole milk.. um eww, I used Fat Free Half & Half with no issues, I really think any milk would work.
Butter the sides and bottom of your gratin baking dish and coat the sides with grated parmesan cheese. This is just like when you bake a cake and you grease your cake pan and coat with flour, same idea.
Place your prepared baking dish on a sheet pan, a good habit to get into as you may save yourself some oven cleaning by taking this precaution against spillage!
When you are ready to go, start off by making the roux, that is melt your butter in a saucepan over medium -low heat, add your flour and whisk it in well, let it cook for about 10 or 15 seconds to cook out that flour taste.
Next you will add your milk all at once while continuing to whisk. Keep stirring until it starts to thicken up and comes to a boil, this will only take a couple minutes, so stay with it!
Guess what? you just made a bechamel sauce base! (More on that another day!) Remove from heat, add salt & pepper and let this cool at least 10 minutes.
**Cooling the sauce allows us to proceed without tempering the eggs or scrambling them on accident!
Meanwhile...
In a separate bowl, beat your eggs well with a whisk or fork, stir in your grated cheese and your chives (or what ever green goodness you decided to use) Next stir the egg mixture into the cooled sauce and Mix well. Now pour into your prepared gratin baking dish. You can bake this immediately or set aside and bake later.
When you are ready, bake 30 - 40 minutes until the souffle is puffy and well browned on top.
Dont be dissapointed if it falls a bit and does not remain super puffed up, it will still taste amazing. We eat it hot or cold!
Tada! Serve with a slice of tomato and a crusty hunk of warm bread- great for any meal of the day!
