soufflé

I should have photographed this at the oven. Because it's so moist and only just barely gently cooked, it collapses as it's brought to the table. Which is fine because otherwise it'd be like eating flavored air.

Four eggs makes three of these.

Preheat oven to 375℉ to 400℉

Ingredients

* 4 eggs
* 2 tablespoons butter (two 1 Tbs. portions)
* 1 crushed and diced garlic clove.
* 1 Tbsp. flour
* 1 Cup of milk
* 2 rings of white onion, diced
* 1 Cup diced mushrooms
* (keep the option open for any meat and vegetable your heart desires)
* 3 strips bacon, cooked in microwave and diced
* 1 level Tbs. Dijon mustard
* ¼ tsp. salt
* 1 heavy grind pepper
* ⅓ Cup whatever cheese or combination of cheese you want to get rid of like.
* ¼ tsp Cream of Tartar

What to do

* Prepare three bowls by coating all three with 1 Tbsp. of the butter and enough grated hard cheese to fully coat the inside. This will help the soufflé lift out of the bowl as it bakes. Set aside.
* Separate the eggs, Whites into an impeccably clean large bowl, and the yolks into a small bowl. Set aside and allow to come to room temperature. Do not allow any yolk to contaminate the whites or they won't beat properly. You have now used 5 bowls -- three that will be baked and two to hold separated eggs. You could cook it all in one soufflé bowl, but what fun is that? Meanwhile...
* Prepare roux with the remaining Tbsp. butter and Tbsp. flour and heat vegetables so they shrink now and not later when they're baking. Garlic first, if you're using that, After the flour cooks for a minute or so and the vegetables are allowed to blanch ...
* Add cold milk and stand there and stir it until if forms a medium-thick sauce. Adjust as necessary. Will thicken slightly when you add cheese. Remove from heat and ...

*Add grated or sliced cheese. Stir until melted off the heat. Because cheese is already processed, it'll separate if you do this over heat. Now you have everything in one pot except the eggs which are in separate bowls, one large and one small.

Now comes the fun part.

*Beat eggs whites until firm. Add Cream of Tartar to strengthen them. Set aside. Or perhaps have a friend do this while you're making the sauce. Guests like to stay busy and feel useful. Guide them in the right technique. Use a whisk to really make them feel useful, or an electric blender if you don't mind messing with electrical implements unnecessarily.

*Add a few tablespoons of the sauce mixture into the small bowl with the egg yolks and quickly stir them to temper the eggs. This prevents them from cooking immediately. Must avoid cooked scrambled eggs at this point. Add a little more to really temper the yolks. Add all the prepared sauce with all the egg yolks. Now there's only two things left to combine -- the egg whites which are presently beaten and separate from everything else in either the pot or the bowl whichever worked out for you.

*The trick now is to get the exceedingly thick sauce mixture containing all the cheese, goodies, and flavor into the fluffy beaten egg whites without collapsing the foam you've created. Spill the sauce around the egg whites, then gently fold it together. Avoid vigorous stirring, rather lift the substance from the bottom up and over the top. Rotate the bowl as you do this until it's nearly completely but not entirely combined. This should take several folding motions.

*Unceremoniously dump the mixture into your prepared dishes. Preferably straight sided, but not necessarily.

*Bake for 35 to 40 minutes. Longer, if you make one big one instead of 3 small ones.

Because it's mostly foam, you can eat quite a lot of this and not really feel full. Therefore, have a big fat steak or something like a McDonald's quarter pounder at the ready lest you feel cheated and still hungry. I ate all three of these at once and still didn't feel like a pig.

Try to get somebody else to clean up the mess, which can be considerable.