Soufflé au Fromage
Cheese Soufflé

Ingredients for 4 people :

- 70 gr [21/2 oz] swiss cheese(comté or gruyère type)

- 30 gr [1 oz] butter + some for dish

- 20 gr [3/4 oz] plain flour

- 25 cl [9 fl oz] milk

- 4 eggs

- salt, pepper & grated nutmeg

Recipe :
1-Pre-heat oven to 180°C / 350°F ; butter the soufflé dishes ; thinly grate the cheese (thin wholes of grater).

2- Separate the egg whites from yolk and beat the whites with an electric mixer until they get thickly frothy.

3- Prepare the béchamel (white sauce) : melt the butter in a saucepan, medium flame, and pour the flour on it while stirring with a wooden spoon until well blended. On a more gentle flame, start pouring a bit of milk and gently stir until it is incorporated ; keep doing this way with all milk. Never stop stirring. Reckon about 10 minutes until the béchamel is ready (it must get thick).

4- Add enough nutmeg, salt & pepper, and remove from fire.

5- Add the grated cheese, then the yolks ; turn vigourously to obtain a homogeneous mixture. Gently incorporate the egg whites with a rubber spatula.

6- Pour the mixture equally into the 4 soufflé dishes ; fill them about 3/4.

7- Bake in oven for about 25 minutes ; the soufflés must rise and get golden brown. Do not open oven door for they would deflate.You need to increase baking time if you use a large single dish, and vice versa. It would take around 40 minutes for 1 big dish...

Make sure all your guests are seated and serve immediately for the soufflé will deflate very quickly once outside.

TRICK : if you feel at ease and wish to skip a step, you can avoid stiffing the egg whites and chose to directly incorporate the whole eggs into the béchamel. In this case, do it egg by egg, beating vigourously with a fork like an omelette ; then add the cheese.

ของหวาน

Poire Belle-Hélène
Pear Belle-Hélène

Ingredients for 4 people :

- 4 big pears, ripe and tasty

- 1/2 lemon

- 70 gr [21/2 oz] sugar

- 25 cl [8 fl oz] water

- 8 vanilla ice cream balls

- 200 gr [7 oz] black chocolate

- 2 Tbspoons sour cream

Recipe :

1- Peel the pears and rub them right away with lemon to keep them from getting dark ; cut them in halves and take the core away with a pointed knife.

2- In medium heavy saucepan, pour the water, sugar, and the juice of left lemon, mix together and bring to the boil ; let simmer for 3 minutes, then put the pears in, cover with a lid and let the fruits poach for 5 minutes, turning them upside down once or twice. Strain (but keep the juice) them and let them cool down.

3- Display two half pears in each of the rib dish.

4- Cut the chocolate in small squares and put them in a small heavy saucepan with 4 spoons of the pear juice from cooking. Melt the whole over a low heat, stirring non stop with a wooden spoon until smooth. The chocolate must not stick to the pan.

5- When the chocolate is ready, quickly put 2 balls of vanilla ice-cream on each pear.

6- Add the sour cream to the chocolate. Pour it evenly on top of ice-cream in each dish and serve immediately.

TRICK : you can drop steps 1 and 2 and buy canned pears. This dessert can then become very easy to make and the special "last minute friends over" ; you can impress a lot by "improvising" this type of dessert...

You can chose to serve the chocolate separately in small saucers.

คำศัพท์

peel - (v)ปลอกเปลือก /(n) เปลือก

halves - ครึ่งหนึ่ง

strain - กรอง

stirring - น่าตื่นเต้น

improvising - รีบจัดขึ้นโดยทันทีทันควัน,นึกขึ้นโดยปัจจุบันทันด่วน