Cookies: Chewy, Thin, and Puffy.

Changes in brief

The modifications were kicked off with a dangerously chewy chocolate chip cookie. The important changes to the recipe were to use bread flour, melted butter, one egg plus one yolk, more brown sugar than white, and to chill the dough before baking. These changes allowed the cookies to stay moist and chewy.

The super thin cookies (a favorite of mine) developed both a pleasing crunch and a slight chew. This was achieved by using all-purpose flour, softened butter, one egg plus milk, and more white sugar than brown. These cookies were not refrigerated, which meant that they spread and ‘melted’ as they baked.

The puffy cookies were last. The distinction here was to use cake flour, shortening (not butter), two eggs, baking powder (instead of baking soda), and chilled dough (like the chewy cookies). These tweaks allow the cookies to rise and puff as it baked.

But whyyyyy? Sure, you just read the differences in the recipes, but what actually happens? What is the difference between the three kinds of flour? Why change from butter to shortening?

Settle down, settle down, all will be revealed…

Let’s take it in order…

Chewy

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies.

• The most obvious change was to use bread flour. Bread flour is important because it has a higher protein content than other flours. The proteins, when mixed with water, form gluten. More gluten equals more chew. This is why bread is kneaded for before baking. It’s also why biscuits and muffins are generally just quickly combined instead of kneaded (ever seen a chewy biscuit? Neither have I).
• The butter is liquefied and milk is added. When the butter liquefies, the fat and water can easily separate. This means that the water in the butter (and the milk) bond with the proteins in the flour and form the gluten we just talked about.
• The recipe also called for a higher proportion of brown sugar to white sugar. The extra moisture and molasses in the brown sugar not only helps keep the cookies together as they bake, but also keeps the dough moist.
• Removing the egg white from one of the two eggs is important too. Have you ever seen a meringue? The main ingredient is, of course, egg whites. After it’s baked, the resulting dessert is dry and crispy. In the case of meringue, that’s a good thing; however, in chewy cookies-not so much. The removal of the egg white stops the cookie from drying out.
• The standard leavening of baking soda is unchanged in this recipe. The object is to provide the cookies with a little ‘give’, so when you bite into them they aren’t as hard as rocks. Baking soda is sufficient on it’s own to achieve this.
• Finally, the dough is chilled before baking. If you keep an eye on these cookies in the oven you notice minimal spreading. By the time the heat softens the chilled dough, the shape has already started to set.

Thin

Thin Chocolate Chip Cookies.

• All-purpose flour, which has a moderate amount of protein, was used in this recipe. AP flour is suitable for, well, all purposes. It can be kneaded into a bread dough, or it can be lightly stirred into a muffin mixture. When used in this recipe, the mixing incorporates the flour with the ingredients and forms some gluten, but not so much as to make it chewy. Even if gluten does form, there are a few more tricks to ensure it does not adversely affect the cookie.
• The butter is softened to room temperature, not turned it into a liquid. This means that the water in the butter doesn’t have as much time to bond with the proteins to form gluten.
• Only one egg was used, the second egg was replaced by a couple ounces of milk. Why remove an egg? Eggs set and puff when they are heated (soufflé, anyone?). Liquids… well… spread.
• Leavening is provided by the baking soda. This gives the cookies enough power to stay together and have a bit of chew, but not so much as to prevent them from spreading.
• In direct contrast to the chewy cookies, more white sugar is used than brown sugar. The lack of moisture and molasses normally found in brown sugar allows the cookies to spread as they bake, while the dry white sugar adds a crispier texture.
• Finally, this dough was scooped out and baked right after mixing. This room temperature, buttery dough beings to spread as soon as it is placed into the oven. By the time the dough sets, it has already spread into a thin (and might I add, delicious) cookie.

Puffy

Puffy chocolate chip cookies.

• Cake flour, not bread or AP, is used in this recipe. Cake flour has the lowest protein content of all the flours-meaning less gluten can develop-so these cookies have the least chew.
• Shortening is used instead of butter because it has a much higher melting point. This means that there is less spreading of the cookie as it bakes.
• Baking powder is used instead of baking soda. Baking powder has a more powerful leavening effect than baking soda due to the acids that react with liquids in the dough. The acidic baking powder releases carbon dioxide, which forces air into the dough. This is why these cookies develop that Chips Ahoy style crunch, and are so well suited for dunking.
• Lastly, the dough is chilled before baking. This same technique is used in the chewy cookies to help keep them mounded as they bake. If you watch the baking process, they spread out a bit first and, as the shortening starts to melt, the baking powder reacts, giving the cookies a lift half way through the baking process.

Now you know. Go forth and make chocolate chip cookies!

Scrambled Eggs

Glad to be back after a school related lapse.  I will be continuing my trek through the Good Eats episodes with scrambled eggs from the first Egg Files episode.  After going through life with mediocre scrambled eggs, I jumped at the opportunity to try a recipe different from my parents’ recipe.  As it turns out, the key to great scrambled eggs is to induce steam and fold them instead of stirring them.  This allows for a perfectly light texture that is still moist.  That brings me to the main lesson of scrambled eggs: if the eggs look done in the pan, they will be overdone by the time they make it to the plate.  This means that your eggs should still look moist when you serve them to the plate, because they will continue to cook.

So even if you think you don’t like scrambled eggs, I would urge you to give this recipe a try.  Maybe you were like me and had mediocre scrambled eggs all your life.  This recipe is simple, and once you get the guidelines you can do it without a recipe on hand.  So give this recipe a try, and the next time you have guests for breakfast, you can wow them with the best scrambled eggs they’ve ever had.

Eggs with a Side of Bacon

Important Notes:
1.  Research done by Cooks Illustrated demonstrated that adding salt to the egg mixture before cooking yielded a more tender finished product.  I add a little bit per egg, and people can add more to taste if necessary after cooking.
2.  This recipe can be adapted to any number of eggs, the guideline per egg are listed in parentheses below.
3.  Depending on the amount of eggs you want to use a different sized skillet, so the eggs won’t take forever.  Here are some rough guidelines: 1-3 eggs (8-inch), 4-8 eggs (10-inch), 8-12 eggs (12-inch).  This allows for the eggs to be better distributed throughout the pan, otherwise the curds take forever to form (see below).

Curds

Ingredients:
4 eggs
4 teaspoons to 3 tablespoons of milk (Between 1 teaspoon and 1 tablespoon of milk per egg)
4 pinches of salt (1 pinch per egg)
A small pat of butter

Beginning to Fold the Eggs

Almost Finished

Directions:
1.  Whisk the eggs, milk, and salt in a small bowl.
2.  Heat the butter in a 10-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Add the egg mixture and stir occasionally until you see curds (see picture).
3.  After you begin to see curds, turn the heat up to medium-high and shake the skillet (slide forward and backward on the burner) to make steam.
4. Begin to fold the eggs intermittently between shaking until the eggs begin to coagulate more and most of the liquid is gone from the pan.
5. Serve the eggs immediately onto a plate (remember you already added some salt, so taste them before salting).

The Puffy.

Asking me to rank these cookies is like asking a parent to pick a favorite child. Like the parent, I can’t say which cookie I love the most (but if I was the parent, I would secretly lead each child to think it’s the other, so they compete for my love! I’m going to be an awful dad).

These cookies represent the “puffy” variety. I’m going to go ahead and say that these are the perfect dunking cookie. The light, airy texture wicks in the liquid and the entire cookie becomes a transportation medium for your drink. Normally I’d say grab a glass of milk, but in this case, I went for chocolate milk. What? Too much chocolate? Nonsense!

Dunkage achieved. Chocolate chip cookie in chocolate milk, yeah, I'm kinda a rebel.

These cookies have the least chew of all three of Alton Brown’s cookies, so fans of chewy cookies are generally disappointed by these. But it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t get at least some joy dunking a cookie into a big glass of milk, so these still find a willing audience. Personally, I am not usually a dunker; I generally eat my chocolate chip cookies the way they come out of the oven; but I gladly make an exception for these delicious treats…

Ingredients
1 cup butter-flavored shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
2 1/4 cups cake flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Recipe

1. Preheat oven to 375 F.
2. Add the shortening and both sugars together and cream on medium-high until light and fluffy.
3. Meanwhile, sift the cake flour, salt and baking powder together into another bowl. (If you don’t have a sifter, just put everything in a bowl and run a whisk through it a few times to mix everything.)
4. To the creamed shortening and sugar, add the eggs and vanilla one at a time. Increase the speed until thoroughly incorporated.
5. Reduce the mixer speed to low and slowly add the dry ingredients until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. Chill the dough at least 2 hours.


Shaped dough.

6. Scoop the cookies into balls and place them onto parchment-lined baking sheets. AB suggests putting only 6 cookies per sheet and using a #20 disher (each cookie will weigh about 1.5 ounces). I don’t have a disher, but if you end up with about 30 balls of dough, then you have made them the right size.
7. Bake for about 14 minutes. Rotate the cookies after about 6 minutes, and check after 5 minutes more. Once they are just turning golden brown, remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.
8. Cool and dunk in milk.

To get maximum puffiness, make the cookies smaller than the 1.5 ounce suggestion. If you like the cookies to be really crunchy, let them bake for the full time. If you only want a bit of crunch, take them out as soon as the edges take on a golden color.

Close-up of cookies.

Stack o cookies

Thin cookies are not normally a favorite. Most are dry and crumbly and lack consistency. It’s not surprising that most people gloss over thin cookies and move on to the chewy or cakey ones. Overlooking this recipe would be wrong, wrong, wrong. These are a surprise of goodness. This recipe produces one of my favorite cookies; they are crispy around the edges, and the thin dough is punctuated by bursts of chocolate. Don’t let the flatness fool you. They are definitely the types of cookies you can still sink your teeth into.

I must admit, I did something crazy with these cookies over the weekend. I was tired and craving cereal, but had none in the house. The cookie jar was on the counter freshly filled with these cookies, teasing me. Naturally, I made my own Cookie Crisp! Just break the cookie into bite sized pieces, put in a bowl, pour milk over it, eat, and repeat until you feel sick. (I recommend skipping the last part of the instructions there-everything up to my third bowl was going so well.)

Cookies, cooling.

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 egg
2 ounces milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 sticks unsalted butter (Bring to room temperature, do not melt in the microwave.)
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Directions

1. Heat oven to 375 degrees F.


Dough, ready to bake.

2. In one mixing bowl, sift together the dry ingredients (flour, salt and baking soda). In another mixing bowl, combine the wet ingredients (egg, milk and vanilla) and let come to room temperature.
3. Cream the room temperature butter on low speed. Add the sugars, increase the speed to high, and mix until light and fluffy.
4. Add the egg mixture and mix on a low speed. Once it begins to be incorporated, increase the speed and mix until well combined.
5. Slowly add the flour mixture. Reduce the speed again so flour doesn’t get everywhere and scrape the edges of the bowl down every now and again to mix everything well.
6. Fold in the chocolate chips.
7. Scoop the cookies in balls onto parchment-lined baking sheets. AB suggests putting only 6 cookies per sheet and using a #20 disher (each cookie will weigh about 1.5 ounces). I don’t have a disher, but if you end up with about 30 balls of dough, then you have made them the right size.
8. Bake for about 14 minutes. Rotate the cookies after about 6 minutes, and check after 5 minutes more. Once they are just turning golden brown, remove from oven and cool on a wire rack. They may look puffy as you remove them from the oven, but they will thin out as they cool.

Potato & Mushroom Gratin

Alton Brown’s first show was about steak, so naturally the next episode, “This Spud’s for You”, was about potatoes.  There are so many different options when cooking potatoes.  I have already covered oven fries, and William has already covered chips, microwave chips and fries.  For a slightly different dish I decided to follow AB’s Potato/Portabello Gratin Recipe.

The gratin looked really amazing and fairly easy to make so I thought I would give it a try. It yields a dish that is amazing in flavor and texture.  The cheese on top becomes crispy and delicious and the inner layers melt in your mouth.  The asiago cheese complements the mushrooms and potatoes perfectly.  This dish is amazing as a side for your steak or even served along with some eggs for breakfast (that’s how I dispersed with some of my leftovers).

Closeup of the Gratin

A gratin is basically very thinly sliced potatoes layered with other goodies, usually topped with cream and then baked.  Preparing this will be significantly easier if you have a v-slicer or mandoline (I’ve never met anyone with cutlery skills that can outpace one).  This is the one I have, although you may be able to find a similar one for less money.  You just want to make sure it can cut chips and fries in various sizes (that’s mostly all I use mine for).  I also switched out the mushrooms in the recipe because that’s what I had on hand, but you can follow his recipe if you like.  Other than cutting the potatoes, the assembly takes little time, so this is a great dish to serve with labor intensive entrées (you can cook while it cooks).  I hope that next time you are looking for a starchy side dish, that you will consider giving this recipe a try.

Assembly of Layers

Ingredients:
5-6 Yukon Gold Potatoes, Peeled
6 oz of small mushrooms (white button or I prefer baby portabella), Sliced
1 cup Grated Asiago Cheese
3/4 Cup Half and Half
Kosher Salt and Black Pepper

Directions:
1. Heat oven to 400 F.  Slice the potatoes into thin chips about 1/8 inch thick (using a v-slicer if you have one).  If your mushroom aren’t presliced you can quickly slice them using an egg slicer (see photo below).
2. Reserve 1/2 cup of the cheese for the top of the dish.
3. Using a baking dish 13 x9 put one layer of potatoes on the bottom and then add salt and pepper, 2-3 Tablespoons of cheese, and about 8 mushroom slices.  You don’t want to put too many mushrooms in each layer or the layers of the final dish won’t set after cooking.
4. Continue making layers until you’ve use all your potatoes.  Pour about 2/3 of a cup of half and half on top of the layers and push down with both hands.  If you see cream bubble up you don’t need to add any more, if you don’t then pour the rest of the half and half on top.
5. Top with the reserved 1/2 cup of cheese and bake uncovered for 45 minutes to an hour.  Depending on your vessel you may want to check at 45 minutes.  You can test the doneness by sticking a knife through the layers, if it’s done there won’t be any resistance.

V-Slicer Action

Slicing Mushrooms

Rib Eye Steak

Ever since William introduced me to Good Eats, I’ve been hooked.  I’ve seen almost every episode, and credit the show with some of the most useful culinary instruction I’ve received.  Whenever I make a new dish, I usually start with the Good Eats version first to help learn all the necessary techniques and to learn to pick the proper ingredients.  Alton Brown just released a new book Good Eats: The Early Years, which has selected recipes, trivia, and pictures from each episode up to episode 80 (which is most of the way through season 6).  This will eventually make up a trilogy of books, with the eventual release of 2 other books.  The release of this book gave me an idea to revisit the early episodes of Good Eats, and to make a recipe from each episode to post on the blog.  This leads me to the first episode: Steak Your Claim.

Searing the 1st Side

Steak Your Claim has an amazing technique for cooking steak that most people haven’t tried at home.  Instead of using the grill, Alton opted for what he refers to as “Black Gold” or a cast iron pan.  It involves getting the pan blazing hot and searing the steak on both sides and then finishing it the rest of the way in the oven.  It yields a delcious, brown crust on the outside of the steak while the inside remains juicy.  The cooking time also only takes about 5 minutes for medium rare, so it hard to beat a perfectly cooked steak in minimal time.  This cooking method does produced a decent amount of smoke, so I would recommend opening some windows in your house before you drop the steak in the pan.

Searing the 2nd Side

Ingredients:
1 Boneless Rib Eye Steak, 1 1/2 Inch Thick
Canola Oil
Salt and Pepper

Directions:
1. Place a 12 inch Cast Iron Skillet in the oven and preheat the oven to 500 F.  Allow the steaks to warm to room temperature.
2. When the oven preheats to 500F remove the pan from the oven and place on a burner over high heat for 5 minutes.
3. During this time, lightly coat the steak with canola oil and salt and pepper both sides.
4. Place the steak in the pan and cook for 30 seconds without touching the steak.  Flip the steak over and cook for another 30 seconds.
5. Place the pan directly in the oven and cook for 2 minutes for medium rare (3 minutes for medium).  Flip the steak and cook for 2 more minutes for medium rare (3 minutes for medium).  The internal temperature should be around 135F for medium rare and 140F for medium (the temperature will rise some while resting).
6. Place the steak in the draining rig composed of a bowl, collander, and lid (see picture) and allow to rest for 5 minutes (This allows for the juices to be retained for a sauce).  Dig in and enjoy!

Draining Rig

The best chocolate glazed doughnuts ever.

Despite putting away over a dozen on my own, I’m not the biggest fan of doughnuts. Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing bad about them, but I’m sorta jaded by the Dunkin Donuts and the Krispy Kreme ones now. I’ll skip over those brands and go straight for a chocolate chip cookie every time. But find a good local bakery or a doughnut shop that does authentic yeast doughnuts and I’m hooked.

Freshly fried yeast doughnuts are second to none. Even without the glaze, these were amazing. I literally burned the roof of my mouth trying to eat these right out of the fryer (totally worth it). As the dough fried, the little rings puffed up and became soft, tender and airy. The little holes cut out were tossed in at the end for a few dozen tiny doughnut holes. These were possibly more addicting than the full sized doughnuts.

Keep the holes you punch out and fry them all!

If you do make these, don’t think you can get away without making the chocolate glaze. Trust me. Make the chocolate.

I’m not going to say that these were easy. It is time consuming and does dirty quite a few pots and pans. It’s absolutely worth it though. These are possibly the most addicting doughnuts I have ever eaten. Which is fortunate, because they don’t keep very well. They are best the day of, and quickly lose their quality. You can resuscitate the glazed ones by briefly microwaving them and the unglazed can actually be passed through a toaster with amazing results.

You get bonus points if you make them prettier by tossing sprinkles on the top. I actually bought sprinkles to do this, but started eating the doughnuts before I got around to shaking the sprinkles out of the jar .

Fried, unglazed doughnuts. These are so good. It was hard enough waiting to eat them until they were glazed.

Yeast Doughnuts
Recipe by Alton Brown.
Ingredients
1 1/2 cups milk
2 1/2 ounces vegetable shortening, approximately 1/3 cup
1/2 ounce instant yeast (that’s about 4 1/2 teaspoons, or 2 packages instant yeast)
1/3 cup warm water (95 to 105 degrees F)
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg (optional)
23 ounces all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting surface
Peanut or vegetable oil, for frying (1 to 1/2 gallons, depending on fryer)

Directions

1. Heat the milk until warm (microwave or saucepan) and pour the hot milk over the shortening in a bowl. Set aside to allow the shortening to melt into the milk.
2. In another small bowl, heat water until warm (about 95F, warm enough to keep your hand in). Sprinkle the yeast over it and let it dissolve for about 5 minutes.
3. Once the milk & shortening has cooled (to about the same temp as the water & yeast mixture started), combine the two mixtures from steps 1 and 2 in the bowl of your mixer. To that, add the eggs, sugar, salt, nutmeg, and about half of the flour. Mix everything on low speed with the paddle attachment, then turn the speed to medium to beat everything together. Add the rest of the flour, low speed first so it doesn’t fly everywhere, then increase the speed to med-high and beat.
4. Switch out the paddle for the dough hook, beat on med-high until the dough pulls away from the edges of the bowl and is pretty smooth, approximately 3 to 4 minutes. It’ll still be sticky, but it should seem to want to stick to itself more than it wants to stick to you.
5. Let rise for 1 hour (or until doubled in size) in an oiled bowl covered with plastic wrap.
6. Flour your surface and roll the dough to about 3/8-inch thick. Cut out dough using a 2 1/2-inch doughnut cutter or pastry ring and using a 7/8-inch ring for the center whole. Set on floured baking sheet, cover lightly with a tea towel, and let rise for 30 minutes.
7. Keep the holes with the rings and roll the scraps together, let rest 30-60 minutes and repeat the previous step.
8. Heat the oil to 355 degrees F. Don’t let the oil get too hot or it will burn and give off flavors. Put 3 or 4 doughnuts in at a time, cook 30-60 seconds per side, until they get golden. I do all the rings first, then the holes.
9. Transfer to a cooling rack with some newspaper underneath to catch any drips. Allow to cool at least 15 minutes before eating or glazing. Or just wait about 15 seconds and start eating. Do try not to burn yourself…

Sugar Glaze
Recipe by Alton Brown.
Ingredients
1/4 cup whole milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups confectioners’ sugar

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan, combine milk and vanilla. Heat on low heat until it gets warm.
2. Sift in the confectioners sugar while gently whisking. Slowly add all the sugar so that clumping does not occur.
3. To keep the glaze a liquid, place the saucepan over a bow of hot water. Dip the doughnuts into the glaze and place onto a cooling rack (drippage will occur, so put something underneath).

Chocolate Glaze
Recipe by Alton Brown.
Ingredients
1/2 cup unsalted butter
1/4 cup whole milk, warmed
1 tablespoon light corn syrup
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
2 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan, combine butter, milk, corn syrup, and vanilla. Heat on medium heat until butter melts.
2. Decrease the heat to low, add the chocolate whisking gently until incorporated. Then add the powdered sugar, again whisking gently until smooth. Place the mixture over a bowl of warm water and dip the doughnuts immediately. Allow glaze to set for 30 minutes before serving.

Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

The last time we indulged my chocolate chip cookie obsession, we looked at the Nestle Toll House recipe. Though I ate those for many years I was never completely satisfied. I always thought that, with a bit of tinkering, the recipe could be altered to produce a better cookie. The problem was that I didn’t understand what modifications could be made to get different results. All of that changed when I saw an episode of Good Eats, Three Chips for Sister Martha. In that episode, Alton Brown makes three different cookies-a chewy one, a puffy one, and a thin one-each using the Toll House recipe as a template.

Let’s get the recipes in your hands and review the cookies before we analyze the changes and why they matter. The first three of the next four cookie posts will be reviews and recipes of each of the cookies. The fourth will be an explanation of the science behind the changes. Let’s start with the Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookie.

Somebody got to one of them...

This recipe results in a bready, chewy cookie. As you can tell by the photos, the cookies are mounded and thick. Personally, though it was a good example of what a chewy cookie should be, it didn’t knock my socks off. But that’s just me. Some of my friends disagreed, and believed that the thick, chocolaty cookie was one of the best they have eaten. I’ll let you be the judge.

Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter
2 1/4 cups bread flour
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1 egg
1 egg yolk
2 tablespoons milk
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

Recipe

1. Preheat your oven to 375 F.
2. Melt the butter in a heavy-bottom medium saucepan over low heat.
3. In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flour, salt, and baking soda.
4. Add the melted butter to your mixer’s work bowl (or into a large mixing bowl and use a hand mixer). To this, add the sugar and brown sugar and cream on medium speed.
5. Add the egg, yolk, milk and vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
6. Incorporate the flour into the mixture slowly as to not spray flour everywhere. Once all the flour has been added, fold in the chocolate chips.
7. Chill the dough.
8. Scoop onto parchment-lined baking sheets. AB suggests putting only 6 cookies per sheet and using a #20 disher (each cookie will weigh about 1.5 ounces).
9. Bake for 14 minutes, checking after 6. (Rotate the cookies about half way though for even browning.) Once they are just turning golden brown, remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

...moments before being devoured.

Deciphering scallop labels

I must say Alton Brown’s Good Eats episode Crustacean Nation does a fine job explaining what all those funny numbers are when choosing shrimp, you know, you’ve seen them like 50/60, 15/20, et cetera. These numbers apply to other shellfish as well. To sum it all up, a 20/30 means that there are about 20-30 scallops per pound. U-sizes like U/15 (U stands for “Under”) indicate that there are under 15 scallops to make up a pound, a pretty large size. U/15 may seem very large, but for many cases this is what is needed. The largest I believe is up to a U/10, which is again, 10 or less to make up a pound.

What a scallop should look like

Key points to keep in mind when choosing scallops:

• The color should be off-whitish-beige, even a little gray to pink but not white.
• Look out for scallops that look like they are in water, this can ruin their flavors.
• In some places (like France :) ) the adductor muscle that is orange is still attached. It is a little firmer and has more of a distinct fish taste than the body of the scallop. It’s a matter of personal taste, but I wouldn’t discard this-I think it’s a nice treat.
• Scallops should be firm and their shape should be uniform, not uneven or lopsided.

Actually, where I am in southern Louisiana, I could not find any fresh scallops unless I drove an hour away to the nearest Whole Foods. Therefore I used frozen sea scallops which came out beautifully. Again apply the same number measurements with frozen scallops to choose your correct sizes.

(Unless you live near the coast, I recommend buying most of your shrimp and other shellfish frozen and defrosting it yourself. This is one of the few cases where frozen is normally better. Commercially bought shrimp is frozen on the boat and then shipped frozen. The “fresh” shrimp your normally see in the supermarket is normally the same ones that are sold frozen. -William)

Cheese Souffle

Until recently, I had never made a souffle. Actually, I had never eaten one either. Souffles are infamous for being a difficult dish to make. I remembered watching the Good Eats episode where he makes a Cheese Souffle, and thinking it looked very doable.  Making a souffle is very similar to making a mousse, and since I’ve done that many times I figured I shouldn’t have any trouble. As long as you can handle whipping egg whites and then using the folding method to incorporate them, you can easily make a souffle.

It’s difficult to describe the texture of a souffle if you’ve never eaten one.  They are very light and airy, with a crisper, browned outer shell.  Like the Crème Brûlée, I really enjoy the contrast. The inside has a texture similar to that of scrambled eggs with a lot of air whipped in. Also as a note the vessel that a souffle is made in is also called a souffle. A souffle (the dish) is fluted to create more surface area. This allows the souffle to rise better. You can see what one looks like in the picture above.

Anyways, I’ll take you through how I made it, and stress the important points so you can build your souffle correctly.

Cheese Souffle

Ingredients
2 Tablespoons Grated Parmesan
3 Tablespoons Butter, plus more for greasing the souffle
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

Directions:

1. Preheat the oven to 375 F.
2. Use some butter to grease the sides and bottom of a 1 1/2 Quart Souffle Dish. Add the Parmesan, and cover with plastic wrap. Move the souffle around to coat the sides and bottom with cheese. Dump off any excess, and recover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer until you are ready to use it.
3. In a separate bowl combine the flour, dry mustard, garlic powder, and kosher salt.
4. In a small saucepan or saucier melt the 3 Tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Wait until the water cooks out of the butter (the butter will foam and then the foaming will subside). This will allow you to incorporate the flour mixture above into the butter easily without lumps forming.
5. Whisk this mixture into the melted butter and cook for 2 minutes. Whisk in the hot milk and turn the heat to high. Once the mixture reaches a boil, remove from the heat.
6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks to a creamy consistency. Temper the yolks into the milk mixture, constantly whisking. Remove from the heat and add the cheese.  Whisk until incorporated.
7. In a separate bowl, using a hand mixer, whip the egg whites until frothy. Add the cream of tartar and whisk until there are stiff peaks (The mixture will look glossy and you will see trails left behind by the beaters. To test for stiff peaks turn off the hand mixer and dip the beaters into the mixture. You will see a peak that should hold, and won’t tilt when you tilt the beaters to the side).  Stir 1/4 of the mixture into the cheese mixture. Continue to add the whites by thirds, folding very gently.
8. Pour the mixture into the souffle. Fill the souffle to 1/2-inch from the top. Using your thumb, make an indentation at the edge of the pan and trace around the periphery of the mixture. Bake in the oven for 35 minutes. (You want to make sure you don’t open the oven while the souffle is baking. This is very important because it may cause your souffle to deflate if the oven loses too much heat.) Enjoy!