My Quest to Understand Cheese

I don't like cheese.

For as long as I can remember, the only cheese I would eat would be the kind melted on pizza, nachos or inside a grilled-cheese sandwich. And the only way it tasted any good was if it was heavily laced with salt, pepper, pickles or ketchup. I limited myself to cheddar and mozzarella. Parmesan smelled like bile (it IS made of bile...), brie smelled like dirty socks, and havarti had the weirdest texture that I just could not get used to no matter how many times I tried it.

My Austrian grandparents love their cheeses. Gouda and swiss emmental especially. You sit down for lunch and no matter what it is you're about to eat, there will be a platter with gouda and swiss cheese handily sliced up for everyone to enjoy. However, while everyone else is blindly masticating, I sit there and think about how it smells like a pile of pungent old laundry mixed with a unique sour smell that I can't even describe. My mom is also a huge fan of melting brie cheese in the microwave and eating it with a spoon. The smell of the melting cheese permeates the whole entire house so that you can't escape the heavy musky odor.

But over Christmas, with all the wines and cheeses and crackers and people, I was peer pressured into trying some different cheese. And in doing so, I discovered Boursin cheese. It's light and fragrant and has the consistency of butter. It doesn't even smell like an old man's body odor! I went back for cracker after cracker until the whole ball of cheese was gone and I was picking up loose crumbs of cheese with my fingertip.

From here, I decided to begin a quest to try and understand people's love for cheese.

I can say that I've made a conscious effort to buy new and different types of cheeses to try in recipes, like applewood smooked cheddar in potato soufflees (recipe here, from Almost Bourdain). I've made these soufflés a few times, and the best was when I incorporated the applewood smoked cheddar instead of regular cheddar or parmesan. It adds a whole new level of subtle flavor to the dish that you can't get with just spices, salt and pepper.


So while I won't claim to love cheese, I will say that I am trying to understand the (odd) fascination some people seem to have with it and use it to my advantage.

Soufflé #1: Raspberry Soufflé

It's the smell. That has to be it.
The thing that compelled people to continue to conjure up soufflé after soufflé in France had to have been the smell because that in itself is pure decadence. There have been whole industries dedicated to bottling that smell. To put it very simply, it's the smell of raspberries, but honestly it's more than that. It's a clean smell - not altered or enhanced or changed in any way. And it fills the entire house within minutes so that every room you go into seems as though it's got a pink haze. I dare you to find a scented candle that will do that!

Unfortunately though, while the scent of these raspberry soufflés was enchanting, that was pretty much all this dessert had to offer.

I learned right off the hop that if you've made a soufflé with the intent to impress someone, that someone better be there to eat it the second you pull the ramekin out of the oven. This is because, while your soufflé will most certainly look jaw-droppingly impressive (possibly to the point of even being somewhat daunting) when you pull it out of the oven, that will only last about 4 minutes. If that.
My soufflés today came out of the oven towering a whole 4 inches over the top of their little ramekins, but by the time they were 5 minutes old, some of them had sunk nearly an inch below the rim. Fail. This might just be the particular recipe I was using, as it contained no flour or anything like that for structure.

These little soufflés definitely did not taste like I had expected. I thought it would be like eating raspberry mousse - light, fluffy and as pure and natural tasting as the smell had led me to believe. Suprisingly, it tasted more like a raspberry candy. Almost sickly sweet even. Combined with the custard-like texture, I didn't quite know what to make of this dish. It's not that it was bad... it was just not something I would choose to eat on a regular basis!

However! I chose to make this particular soufflé because I had 6 egg whites that I needed to use up as well as a few cups of raspberries that were getting a bit old. I had less than an hour in which to make this dish start to finish, and to be completely honest I was done with half an hour to spare. There are three steps in this recipe and it's simplicity made me constantly check and re-check it to make sure I didn't miss anything. So as far as efficiency goes, this definitely gets a gold star.

I should probably add that if I were after a recipe that was gluten-free, extremely low on sugar, or completely fat-free, this dish would have been perfect. However, I am a fan of flour, fat, and sugar, so this was not at all what I had expected. Soufflé #2 will be better!!

Recipe:
Raspberry Soufflé
(Adapted from the Art and Soul of Baking, by Cindy Mushet)

12 oz fresh or frozen raspberries
1 tbsp plus 1/4 c granulated sugar
5 large egg whites

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (f). Puree the raspberries in a food processor and then run the puree through a strainer to get out all the seeds. You should end up with 1 cup of smooth seedless raspberry puree. Stir in the 1 tbsp of sugar.
2. Whip the egg whites on medium speed until they form soft peaks. With the mixer running, rain in the remaining 1/4 cup of sugar and beat until stiff, glossy peaks form. Stir 1/4 of the egg whites into the raspberry puree to lighten the mixture. Fold the remaining whites in until there are no more streaks of white.
3. Pipe the soufflé batter into 10 3 oz individual buttered ramekins until flush with the rim. Bake for 14-17 minutes, until set and firm to the touch in the centre. Dust with confectioner's sugar and serve with créme fraîche. Devour immediately.

Soufflé: I never knew how much I loved thee...

I made my very first soufflé last week. It was a potato and cauliflower soufflé that I found on Almost Bourdain (I arbitrarily added the cauliflower myself because I love the tangy taste of cauliflower added to cheese and potato). I was expecting something complicated and incrediby time consuming, but instead found that making this dish was one of the easiest things ever! And as an added bonus, it came out looking as good as it tasted (just like the pictures!). I would almost go so far as to say that you can't mess up a soufflé after this. Of course you can't quote me on that. There are ways to mess up anything...

So now I'm endeavouring to go on a soufflé kick. From the fancy chocolate soufflés that turn into megaliths looming over their pans to the pureed fruit soufflés that only use three ingredients (fruit, egg whites, and sugar) and then back again to the more savoury soufflés that I have only just begun to discover! I love the way they look and their light airy texture that is in such contrast to the intense and powerful flavour that you find in these beautiful dishes. I want to try more and so that is my goal for this month (in addition to making a Turkey Dinner for Thanksgiving this weekend, writing a play and two papers as well as three midterms... it can be done!).

Soufflés... I can do that.