Last night I made these little cheese souffles; I had been at an organic gardening workshop all afternoon (more on that later) so by the time I got home I was pretty hungry and I had two hungry boys to feed too. Maybe souffle sounds intimidating, and I'll be honest, I wouldn't attempt it if I didn't have my trusty KitchenAid mixer to whip the egg whites for me, but if you have some kind of tool to do the hard part they're actually really easy. They're also a great "pantry recipe" and a fun way to turn everyday ingredients into something fancy. I adapted these from an Alice Waters recipe.
Mini Cheese and Bacon Souffles
2 slices of bacon
3 TB butter
3 TB flour
1 cup milk
4 eggs, separated
about 4 ounces cheese
salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut the bacon into little pieces with kitchen shears and cook it in a saucepan until the fat renders. Remove the pieces of bacon with tongs and set aside. In the bacon fat, melt your butter. Cook the flour in the fat and butter mixture for 2 minutes, stirring frequently. Pour in the milk a little at a time, whisking well after each addition, until you've added all the milk. Cook over low heat for about 10 minutes. Don't forget to stir or a skin will form on top.
When the bechamel has finished cooking, remove it from the heat and let it cool for a bit. Stir in the egg yolks and cheese. You can use whatever you like; last night I used Basque Shepherd's cheese from Trader Joe's and it was great. I've also made this with ground Romano and with goat cheese. Whatever floats your boat! Stir in the reserved bacon pieces. Season with salt and pepper; you want the sauce to be just a touch too salty because you'll be folding in the egg whites.
Whip the egg whites in your mixer or by hand if you're awesome. You want them to increase in volume by quite a bit. When they're ready they'll look shiny and have tiny, uniformly sized bubbles. If you still see some big bubbles they aren't whipped enough. When you take out your beater there should be stiff peaks on the top of the eggs. Don't overwhip them either; they will break down if you whip them too much. Just keep your eyes open for tiny bubbles and a pretty, glossy look.
GENTLY fold about half of the egg whites into your cheese sauce. It took me a while to get the hang of this because my instinct is to really really mix everything. You DO NOT want to do this; it'll pop all the tiny bubbles in your egg whites that make the souffle puff. So, gently fold: scoop in some egg white, and with a wooden spoon just push a little sauce over it. Keep going until you've put about half the egg whites in, then fold the egg white/sauce mixture into the remaining egg whites. I do this right into the mixing bowl. The aim is for light and fluffy and airy.
You can cook whole thing in a souffle dish, or if you're pressed for time (as I often am in the evening) you can cook mini souffles in only 10 minutes. I used mini springform pans because I don't have ramekins for the oven, but ramekins would look nicer. If you're cooking the whole thing, pop it in the oven for about 40 minutes. When you pour the souffle mixture into your container of choice be very gentle.
When the souffles are done, they will be puffy and golden and just a tiny bit jiggly in the middle. My little souffles were so puffy last night and started deflating pretty soon after I took them out of the oven; if this happens to you, don't worry, they taste really good either way.
