Gruyère Cheese Soufflé

Anyone with the American imprint of Larousse Gastronomique will certainly have been tempted by the delectable soufflé on the front cover. The power of suggestion was too strong to resist as one of our French sauces (Béchamel) formed one of the basic ingredients in a savoury soufflé. Larousse, while still a treasure trove of culinary information, is often vague on details as it assumes a good bit of background knowledge about food preparation. To fill in some of the details, we kept open a copy of The Professional Chef on the counter. (And as a target, we kept in mind an exquisite soufflé from La Chaumière in Washington DC.)

Ingredients

40g butter
40g all-purpose flour
200 mL milk
80g Gruyère, finely grated
4–5 egg yolks
4–5 egg whites
salt
pepper
nutmeg

Procedure

1. Combine the butter, flour, milk, salt, pepper, and nutmeg to make a Béchamel. (See previous post.)
2. Preheat the oven to 220ºC. d
   
3. Mix the eggs yolks in a bowl and temper them with a few spoonfuls of the sauce one at a time. Then, over medium-low heat combine the tempered yolks with the base mixture. Stir constantly for 3–4 minutes. Do NOT allow this to boil.
4. Add the grated Gruyère to the mixture while stirring. (We added these about the same time that we were combining the egg yolks to keep the mixture just a touch cooler.)
5. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.
   
6. Fold the egg whites into the mixture by thirds.
   
7. Spoon the soufflé batter into ramekins that have been buttered and dusted with flour. Leave about 1cm of space between the level of the batter and the rim.
   
8. Turn the oven down to 200ºC (425ºF). Place the soufflés on a baking pan and into the warm oven. Bake without opening the door or moving until the top is a dark, golden brown. Baking time depends on the size of the ramekins. (Small individual servings: 10–12 minutes; larger soufflés may take 16–24 minutes.)
9. Serve immediately.

After spooning out our mixture into our four small ramekins, we still had plenty of batter leftover, so we put the extra into a small Pyrex bowl; in most respects it was even better. The slightly larger diameter allows the soufflé to remain fluffier. This being our first attempt at a soufflé, it was also easier to judge how well cooked it was because we could see through the glass to the base.