Souffle Girl (#5)

One of the items on my list this year (#5) was to make a souffle.  This was basically because of a Doctor Who episode "Asylum of the Daleks."  Here is a brief synopsis of the story, taken from here.

The Doctor, along with Amy and Rory who are headed for divorce, are kidnapped by the Daleks. They find themselves before the Dalek Parliament and the Doctor is quite surprised when he learns why: they want him to save them. A ship has crashed on the one place they will not go - the Asylum, where mad Daleks are sent to spend the rest of their days. Once there, they are assisted by the only survivor of the crash, Oswin, who has been there for a year awaiting rescue and making soufflés to pass the time. Which leads the Doctor to ask the most important question of all: where does she get the milk?

Later on in the story, close to the end, he also wants to know where she got the eggs .. she responds eggs, eggs, eggs, eggsterminate, of something like that.  Anyway. I got the ingredients to make a cheese souffle (recipe from here), so that Nevada and I could make it on Saturday after seeing Aladdin (did I talk about that at all?).  Anyway, I had the ingredients on hand, but totally spaced and didn't make it.  However, since I had the ingredients I  decided to make it on Monday night.

Ingredients:

• Butter, room temperature, for greasing the souffle
• 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan
• 1 1/2 ounces (3 tablespoons) butter
• 3 tablespoons flour
• 1 teaspoon dry mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/8 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1 1/3 cups milk, hot
• 4 large egg yolks (2 1/2 ounces by weight)
• 6 ounces sharp Cheddar
• 5 egg whites plus 1 tablespoon water (5 1/2 ounces by weight plus 1/2 ounce water)
• 1/2 teaspoon cream of tartar 

The first thing you do is prepare the dish, with butter and the parmesan cheese (the ingredient list called for grated cheese - the video says ground or something (so that the cheese is very fine). I used the grated and it was good.

Then you make a white sauce with the rest of the butter and the flour and other dry ingredients.

Then you add the hot milk, slowly. and then the shredded cheddar cheese.  (Which I had not yet prepared so that didn't go as smoothly as I wanted.)

Then after it's smooth you whip up the egg whites and cream of tartar.  When that reaches a hard peak stage (?) you fold it into the sauce.

No picture of that.  Then you bake it for 35 minutes and voila ...

After taking the souffle from the oven, I let it sit on the counter.  I had no idea how to eat it since I had never had one before.  We waited at least a half hour to try it, by which time it had fallen, but it was still light and tasty.

A couple of recommendations for those making a souffle with this recipe.  Have all your ingredients ready ahead of time (I didn't shred the cheese until I needed it).  Read all instructions.  Watch the video at least once.