Soufflés are special…

I was on the phone with my grandparents a few days ago telling them about the last couple of weeks in school and the goings-on in Paris. I was telling my grandpa that there are very few recipes I have made at school that I will ever make again. That is, if I want to live past the age of 30! Then I told him about the Grand Marnier soufflé we just saw in demo, and he immediately said, "well, you better make that again!"

And without a doubt, there is something special about soufflés. They can be savory or sweet and come from the french verb, souffler, which means "to blow up" or "to puff up." They must be served and eaten immediately--oven to the table--or you will witness the sad deflated remnants of a former soufflé…a tragic sight!

So, in the name of things I will surely make again, here are two soufflé recipes for you to try. The first is the cheese soufflé in honor of my dear friend and first visitor from home, Anne-Marie. Lucky for me, she did a one night stop-over in Paris while she and her husband were in London. We had an amazing time catching up and it was so, so nice to see someone from home. (It was also great having her here because she speaks fluent French!) And, like a soufflé, her visit was amazing but all too short-lived. Thanks to my crazy school schedule, I had no time to cook for Anne-Marie, but next time I see her I think a cheese soufflé should be on the menu!

Cheese Soufflé pour mon amie, Anne-Marie
40 g unsalted butter
40 g flour
250 mL milk
100 g gruyere, grated (plus some to sprinkle on top)
3 egg yolks
5 egg whites, stiffly beaten
pinch of salt
nutmeg

Preheat your oven to 350-degrees and immediately put a baking sheet on the bottom rack and remove other racks to allow room for your soufflé to rise. Butter and flour a 1.5-qt. soufflé dish. Brush on the butter in vertical strokes, the same direction the soufflé will rise. Put the mold in the fridge.

Prepare your béchamel: melt the butter in a saute pan over medium heat. Do not let the butter take on any color. Remove from the heat while you whisk in the flour. Put the roux back on the heat to cook off the flour taste. When the roux no longer smells of flour, add cold milk and whisk continually until the mixture thickens into béchamel sauce. When thick, grate in some fresh nutmeg, add salt and pepper. Taste and adjust seasoning. Remove from heat and whisk in egg yolks. Cover with plastic wrap in direct contact with the sauce so it won't form a skin. Set aside, do not let get cold.

Add cold egg whites with a pinch of salt to your stand mixer and whip until stiff.

Transfer the béchamel to a mixing bowl, add cheese and whisk. Then add 1/3 of the beaten egg whites and whisk together until smooth. Gently add another 1/3 of the egg whites and fold in with a rubber spatula. (No whisk at this point!) Then add the last third, and stop when the mixture is just combined. Careful not to tap the bowl and try to deflate the egg whites as little as possible when mixing.

Gently lift out the soufflé mixture into the butter & floured dish with a ladle or a pastry scraper. Fill the dish 8/10 of the way to the top. Careful not to dribble any on the sides or rim, it will stop the soufflé from rising evenly. Sprinkle the top (in the center, not near the edges) with a bit of the grated cheese.

Place the dish on the hot baking sheet on the bottom rack of the oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes. When the top is a nice brown color, use your knife to test whether it is cooked through. Pierce the side of the soufflé, near the rim of the dish, and go all the way into the center. If the knife comes out clean, it's ready!

Serve immediately…have your trivet ready on the table!

And, now for souffle no. 2…
As soon as I saw the chef demonstrate how to make a Grand Marnier soufflé, I knew someday I would be making it for my Uncle Gary. He is a true gourmand who loves to eat and eat well. One of my earliest memories with him was eating mussels for the first time at the Cadeux Cafe, or going to old Joe Muir's with his parents, "Pops & Ginia." Ginia was a good cook and loved to laugh. Pops loved to eat and loved his wife. And the apple doesn't fall far from the tree : ) Just before I left for Paris, our family was sitting around the table playing the last supper game, and this was Gary's dessert. May it be far from your last supper, Gary, but the next supper together we will have shrimp eileen and Grand Marnier soufflé. (Well…in all fairness, I have promised your wife cream puffs, so you guys will have to duel over who's dinner is first!)

Uncle Gary's Grand Marnier Soufflé
500 mL milk
5 egg yolks, plus 3 egg yolks
150 g sugar
40 g flour
40 g cornstarch
50 mL Grand Marnier
zest of 2 oranges
100 mL orange juice
50 g candied orange peel, macerated in Cointreau (optional)
butter and sugar to line the mold
8 egg whites
70 g sugar

Preheat your oven to 350-degrees and immediately put a baking sheet on the bottom rack and remove other racks to allow room for your soufflés to rise. Butter and sugar a two 1.5-qt. soufflé dishes. Brush on the butter in vertical strokes, the same direction the soufflé will rise. Put the molds in the fridge.

To a small sauce pan, add orange juice and orange zest. Bring to a steady boil to reduce the mixture by half. Once reduced, remove from the heat and add the Grand Marnier.

Prepare pastry cream: Heat 500 mL of milk until it just comes to a boil. (By the way, 1 mL = 1 g, so you can weigh out any wet ingredients easily.) While the milk is heating, whisk together 5 egg yolks and 150 g sugar until the color lightens. Then whisk in the flour and cornstarch. When the milk just boiled, add about half of the hot milk to the bowl, whisking while you add so as not to cook the eggs. When combined, pour the mixture into the saucepan with the hot milk. Put back on heat, whisking continually. Keep moving on and off the heat until it comes back up to just a boil and thickens. Remove from heat. (Careful not to let the bottom of the pot take on any color.)

Once off the heat, continue to whisk for a minute to make sure it stays smooth. Then, add the other 3 egg yolks and whisk to combine. Now, add the Grand Marnier & oj mixture. At this point you can also add your diced candied orange peel, I don't happen to like them so I leave this part out…but whatever floats your boat.

Cover with plastic wrap in direct contact with the pastry cream so it won't form a skin. Set aside in a warm place so it doesn't get cold.

Add cold egg whites to your stand mixer and whip until stiff. When soft peaks form, add 70 g sugar and continue to beat until shiny.

Transfer the pastry cream to a mixing bowl. Then add 1/3 of the beaten egg whites and whisk together until smooth. Gently add another 1/3 of the egg whites and fold in with a rubber spatula. (No whisk at this point!) Then add the last third, and stop when the mixture is just combined. Careful not to tap the bowl and try to deflate the egg whites as little as possible when mixing.

Gently lift out the soufflé mixture into the butter & sugar-lined dishes with a ladle or a pastry scraper, dividing evenly. Fill the dishes 8/10 of the way to the top. Careful not to dribble any on the sides or rim, it will stop the soufflé from rising evenly.

Place the dish on the hot baking sheet on the bottom rack of the oven and bake for about 15-20 minutes. When the top is a nice brown color, use your knife to test whether it is cooked through. Pierce the side of the soufflé, near the rim of the dish, and go all the way into the center. If the knife comes out clean, it's ready!

Have the dishes and spoons ready and serve to your guests! I've seen this served at the Arroyo Chop House with a drizzle of Grand Marnier over the top just as it comes to the table. Yum : )

Lastly, say a prayer of thanksgiving for your Kitchen-Aid, because in school we have to do all of this whisking by hand!

<3 L

I Heart Valentine's Day

Ever since I was little, I have always loved Valentine's Day. Hearts, red, pink, flowers, candy, cute decorations, sweet cards, cupcakes and parties…all of my favorite things. A broken heart can ruin a lot of things, but I decided it wasn't going to ruin one of my favorite holidays. Food, friends and wine = parfait!

My thoughts had been preoccupied with my meeting with the chef who told me to "just cook," and to have a Sunday the way the French do: go to the market, cook, eat, drink, hang. (I might have added the "hang," but he would have said it if he knew that word in English.)

My friend from school, Anthony, is living here while his husband is back in the states. Since we were both sans dates for Vday, I asked him to be my valentine and he graciously accepted. (Don't worry James, only valid in the 7th arrondissement!). We talked about just cooking and having a relaxed Sunday, and Anthony suggested we start at the gorgeous outdoor market right near his apartment. My fellow Grande Diplome friend, Blanca from Madrid, joined us to help us prepare this feast.

We arrived at the market at noon. Sweet Anthony brought flowers and chocolate for Blanca and I… I mean, c'mon, girls love that stuff! Anthony asked, "so, what are we getting?" Blanca and I shrugged, none of us came with a plan (except Anthony's delicious goat cheese that I am still dreaming about!). We just walked around, picked up what looked good, got inspired...and before long we had our menu:

Roasted chicken with red skin potatoes, carrots, zucchini and mushrooms
Seared ahí tuna
Sauteed Coquille St. Jacques scallops (in season and amazing)
Mashed pumpkin with Comté cheese
Green salad with haricot vert, dried cranberries, tomato and almonds
Duck terrine
Olives, charcuterie, shrimp, cheeses, baguettes
…and a half a case of wine, of course!

Three cooks in my tiny kitchen, and I'm not even sure who did what, but at some point the table was full of food. And, as any good Cordon Bleu student must, we followed the chef's directions: we sat, we ate, we drank, we laughed. Thankfully, Gillian from Dublin and her boyfriend came over to help with the mounds of food!

It was a perfect day. And, I now know why the chef's advice was so important. When you get into the kitchen at school, it's about speed, precision, and completion. Everyone's tense because the chef is looming or yelling at someone. There are good days, but it's definitely not like cooking in your own kitchen, (whisk in one hand wine in the other). Plus, I can't tell you how much food I throw away because even the dishwashers don't want to take home veal stuffed with veal stuffed with pork in a kilo of butter.

I started to forget how much I love to cook. And then St. Valentine brought the heart back. Spending the day cooking, actually enjoying the food and sharing it with friends reminded me why I came here in the first place. That is what I love to do. I won't be number one at graduation, but hey…I'll throw the best party after : )

I heart you all. xoxo

Live to fight another day...

When Sabrina Fairchild attends Le Cordon Bleu, after learning how to boil water and crack an egg, she has to make a soufflé. The bête noire of culinary school.  Her judgement moment arrives, and the chef peers over into her dish and grimaces, "much too low." The old, sweet Barron takes her aside and says, "you forgot to turn on the oven!" Poor Audrey Hepburn looks like a sad puppy when the Barron continues, "your mind has not been on zee cooking, your mind has been elsewhere…"

Well, my dear followers (all 8 of you sweethearts!), it's no secret that the last couple of weeks have not been the best of my life. In fact, they would rank high amongst the worst. Needless to say, my mind has not been on zee cooking…

Yet, nothing can focus the mind like the words "midterm grades." Which of course, we received this week…and I admit to a touch of anxiety. Not so much because of the "grade" but the fact that we are mid-term already. Holy moly moment. The upside of the whole thing is that we each have an individual meeting with a chef. For those of us doing both cuisine and pastry, we have a meeting for each.

In my cuisine meeting, I was lucky to have a chef that knows me and has seen me do a fair bit of work in practical. His feedback was interesting, he said "I haven't figured you out yet." Probably because of the puzzled look on my face, he immediately added, "it iz not in a bad way, it iz zat I am not sure all you are capable of yet." Then he asked, "how do you sink you're doing?"

I said, "well, I've had good days and bad days. Honestly, I have been a bit distracted lately."

"Yes, good days and bad days iz a good way to put it," and he puffed my ego a bit by saying, "but, your bad days are still good compared to some ozer people." He added, "I watch you, you have good organization, you're clean and do good work." Then he hesitated, and said, "just some days you don't show up. You must be 100% every day."

"Oui, chef. Désolé."

"No, no, no, not to be sorry! It iz so you can focus. Zat is why we have zis meeting. But...it iz up to you…"

"Oui, chef. I promise, I will try."

I told him that I truly appreciate his feedback. I did not come here to be number one or have the highest grade. I'm here to learn, plain and simple. I want to get everything I can out of my time here, so I asked if there's something I be doing at home to improve. I said that I've been practicing turning mushrooms and carrots…what else can I do, what is the one skill that I should truly master? Soufflé? What?

He shook his head and told me, "just cook."

Chef said that every Sunday, French people, they go to church…well some of them do. (His words, not mine!) And then they go to the market and buy a chicken or whatever looks good. They cook, and sit around the table for hours eating and drinking. He said to just keep cooking, no matter what it is. Learn about ingredients, try new things. "It's clear you love to cook, zee more you do zee better you will be."

Sweet chef. Could he see that I just needed that go get 'em pep talk?
I have to say, compared to what I've heard from my friends about their meetings, I lucked out. Some people had a chef who didn't even know who they were.

Lucky girl that I am, I also had a meeting with the pastry chef that knows me. He also gave me more specific feedback, which is nice. He said that I am doing excellent work, even remembered my apple tart, but said that I need to continue to get faster. I'm never last, but I do tend to be a perfectionist, and I have always thought, "better to be slower and perfect than rushed and a mess." Now is the point where I need to get to perfect faster. Which is a fun challenge, I guess. "Keep practicing," and "Memorize what you need to do. Don't waste time reading your recipe."

Oui, chef.

Tomorrow we are making a Mocha cake, which requires a lot of piping with a tiny fluted tip. Piping is not my favorite; mostly because all that swagging looks like a supermarket sheet cake with over-sugared pastel icing. Yuck! Nevertheless, it is the "traditional" way to decorate a Mocha cake. So, swagging here I come!

It's a long life. There will be shitty times and terrible practical classes. I'm sure I have many "très biens" and "terribles" in my future. Today was also my first injury. Minor-to-medium burn on my left hand, courtesy of boeuf bourguignonne. But, I live to fight another day.

Merci beaucoup (beaucoup!) to everyone that has sent their love the past couple of weeks : ) It helps. xoxo