The word soufflé is irresistible as it blows over your tongue and through your teeth. {It's a word in French that you can say without your French Immersion daughters laughing at your pronunciation.} It means breath, or to take one's breath away. Which is exactly what happens. As you hold your breath, the soufflé takes a breath and falls.

In the unfair world of food, a chocolate soufflé is allowed to take a breath, but a cheesy egg soufflé is not. This soufflé is filled with a cheese called comté (pronounced con-tay) from a terroir that spans the Jura and the Doubs departments in France. This region learned how to transform milk into a cheese that could be preserved and gained status as one of the first cheeses with the Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC) signature. Unfortunately, I couldn't find this distinguished cheese in my grocery store so I used a humble, but satisfying tangy Swiss cheese instead.

Roux…béchamel…Mornay…meringue are all techniques learned in previous classes that merge in this recipe to make a delicate, diva-like, spectacular dish. First, prepare the milk by bringing it to a boil. Don't turn your back on it for too long or the neglected mixture will punish you with spilled, scorched milk on your stove. While watching the milk, make a roux. Whisk in the hot, un-neglected milk and stir until the sauce becomes thick. Now the sauce is christened a béchamel. Season with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Simmer and whisk for awhile to encourage the flavors to develop and avoid burning and sticking. Remove it from the heat and add the cheese. Now it's named Mornay. Next whisk in the yolks and set aside.

The last step is to make a meringue. After the meringue is at its perfect, softly-whipped-but-holding peaks stage, sacrifice some of it (about a third) to lighten the Mornay mixture. Carefully fold in the remaining whites {remembering your Grandma looking over your shoulder as you folded the egg whites into waffle batter when you were just a head taller than the counter, pointing out all the whites that needed hiding}.

Even pouring the mixture into the soufflé dish requires a patient, careful hand. You must avoid dripping any batter on the sides so that the soufflé can climb the dish without touching a patch of burnt-on batter. Then you must tap the dish gently to remove air bubbles. After putting it in the oven, you must not open the oven door while it's baking. And you must not slam the oven door. {Whisper soufflé and blow it a kiss.}

Finally, after baking, hold your breath. Carefully remove the soufflés from the oven. Exhale slowly. {Photograph quickly.} Devour.


Recipe

Serves 6

1¼ cups grated Comte or other imported Swiss cheese such as Gruyere or Emmenthal
1¼ cups milk
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
¼ cup all-purpose flour
Salt
White pepper
Freshly grated nutmeg
4 eggs, separated
Unsalted butter, softened, for soufflé mold
You can find the recipe for Soufflé au Comté (Cheese Soufflé) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Tasting Notes
This is a creamy, airy and comforting dish that gives you a faint whistle before deflating. Not difficult to make, but impressive if you're courageous, especially if you attempt to add bacon, lobster or asparagus. Taste and enjoy its fleeting beauty.

Links
• 65 sq foot kitchen: Leeks and Gruyère Soufflé, Step-by-Step
• Behind the Burner: How to Make Cheese Soufflé (video)
• Chef de Cuisine: Soufflé
• La Tartine Gourmande: Soufflé, if I Blow, Will it Fall?

Next Class
• Bavarois à la Vanille, Coulis de Framboise (Vanilla Bavarian Cream with Raspberry Coulis)

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $1,425.65 + $8.76 = $1,434.41
($1.46 per serving)

Butter used so far: 12 pounds, 23.5 tablespoons

. . . . . . . . . .

Four simple ingredients work their magic to create this golden honeycombed sweet surrounded by chocolate that goes by a variety of names. Known as cinder toffee, hokey pokey, puff candy or Crunchie bar, this is an easy treat to make at home.

Vinegar and baking soda react together to form many tiny bubbles before hardening into sponge toffee. What's left is a buttery confection that crunches and melts in your mouth.

Recipe

Makes one 9x13 pan

1 cup sugar
1 cup dark corn syrup
1 tablespoon vinegar
1 tablespoon baking soda

12 ounces milk chocolate chips, melted
Line a 9x13 pan with foil and spray with cooking spray.

Use a large, heavy saucepan since the mixture expands when you add the soda. Combine the sugar, corn syrup and vinegar. Cook and stir until the sugar melts. Bring to a boil and cook, without stirring, until a candy thermometer reaches 300°F (hard-crack stage).

Remove from the heat and stir in baking soda. (The mixture will bubble and expand.) Quickly pour into the prepared pan (so that mixture stops cooking and doesn't burn). Cool. Lift candy and break into pieces. Dip in melted chocolate and let stand until set. Store in an airtight container.

Tasting Notes
If you like Crunchie Bars, you'll love this sweet. Crushed into vanilla ice cream is another way to enjoy this treat.



Links
• Vinegar + Baking Soda Explanation
• The Onion: Science Guy Bill Nye Killed In Massive Vinegar/Baking-Soda Explosion

Award
Margot from Coffee and Vanilla has given me the Beautiful Blog award (a replacement for the Inspiring Food Photography event she hosted monthly from September 07 to December 08). Check out all the amazing food bloggers and their inspiring photgraphy. I'm honored to be in such great company. Thank you, Margot!

On a hot, hot day in July (or any day, for that matter), what could be better than a refreshing Mojito on the deck or patio? Mojitos have become trendy in the past decade, now claiming to be one of the most popular cocktails. And we were enjoying testing these Mojito variations all weekend!

History
The word mojito comes from the word mojo, which means to blend, combine or assemble. The earliest Mojito recipes date back to Cuba in the early 1930s but the drink didn’t become popularized until the 1940s, at a Havana bar, La Bodeguita del Medio. This was a bar frequented by musicians, students, and future celebrities such as Ernest Hemingway, Bridget Bardot, and Nat King Cole, and it was here that the Mojito gained its solid reputation. Today this bar is a popular tourist destination in Havana and the Mojito is in demand around the world, wherever fine cocktails are served.

Ingredients
The most difficult ingredient to find may be the mint! I had to go to a couple of grocery stores to find some, and I plan on planting some in my garden so that I can have a mojito whenever the mood hits.

Some prefer to use soda water, or even Champagne, in place of mineral water. I found that mineral water keeps the taste cleaner unlike soda water or even champagne.

Also, some recipes call for simple syrup to be used in place of sugar (2 cups sugar to 1 cup of water, placed over high heat until sugar dissolves, stirring constantly for about five minutes). I like to use both sugar and simple syrup. The graininess of granulated sugar helps grind the mint leaves and the simple syrup adds sweetness to make a perfect Mojito.

For my own twist on the Mojito, I muddled lemon balm and lemon verbena leaves from plants I picked up at the Ottawa Farmers' Market last week. As well, instead of mineral water, I used Ginger Beer for a spicy kick.

Lemon Balm and Lemon Verbena
Lemon Balm and Verbena Mojito

Serves 1

2-3 leaves of lemon balm
2-3 leaves of lemon verbena
2 ounces lime juice, freshly squeezed (usually the juice of 1-2 limes)
2 teaspoons fine granulated sugar (or more to taste)
Crushed ice
2 ounces simple syrup
2 ounces white rum (for example, Bacardi white rum) [I had to use gold rum since that's what we had on hand.]
4 ounces Ginger Beer
1 sprig of lemon balm or lemon verbena
Into a long, tall glass, place the lemon balm and lemon verbena leaves. Sprinkle the sugar on the leaves. Taking a muddler or a wooden spoon, grind the mint leaves into the sugar. The granulated sugar will act as an abrasive to release the juice in the leaves. Add the lime juice. Then add crushed ice to fill the glass to about three-quarters full. Add the rum. Add the ginger beer and stir gently. Garnish the drink with a sprig of lemon balm, lemon verbena and a slice of lime.

Classic Cuban Mojito

Serves 1

4-5 mint leaves (apple mint or spearmint, not peppermint)
2 ounces lime juice, freshly squeezed
2 teaspoons fine granulated sugar (or more to taste)
Crushed ice
2 ounces simple syrup
2 ounces white rum (for example, Bacardi white rum)
2 ounces mineral water (for example, Perrier)
1 sprig of mint

Follow the same method as for the Lemon Balm and Verbena Mojito.

Variations:
• Watermelon Mojito: Add 3 ounces seedless watermelon, pureed.
• Mango Mojito: Add 3 tablespoons pureed mango.
• Passion Fruit Mojito: Add 2-3 tablespoons pureed passion fruit.

Tasting Notes
This is a drink to be sipped slowly. As the ice melts it becomes lighter and more mellow. Overall, it is a refreshing summer drink to enjoy with good friends and lively conversation. Plus it's a fun drink to experiment with herbs and flavors.

My Bucket List

Sip a Mojito at La Bodeguita del Medio in Havana, Cuba

"The first step in making rabbit stew is catching the rabbit."
— Isaac Asimov

I tasted rabbit for the first time on a restaurant patio in Greece not far from Olympia. It was memorable not only because of the surroundings but also because it was ... a rabbit. I was a little squeamish about making it myself and wouldn't have wanted to break down my lapin from scratch, so I pretended it was chicken and moved past the whole idea of cooking and eating someone's pet.

"Real cooks have hard hearts."
— Marjorie Leet Ford

Sometime last year, I read Thomas Keller's account of "The Importance of Rabbits" in The French Laundry Cookbook. Keller asked his rabbit supplier to show him how to prepare a rabbit, and his first solo attempt at killing, skinning and eviscerating a rabbit was horrific. "It was a simple lesson," he says after the event, which taught him the importance of each animal's life. From then on, he would not waste any part of the animal.

"I knew that to waste anything was about as close to sin as a chef gets." — Thomas Keller, The French Laundry Cookbook

How to Have Hare in Your Stew
After cutting the rabbit up into pieces, it is marinated overnight in red wine and aromatics. Following this marinating stage, the rabbit is removed (at which time you marvel at its purple complexion), dried and browned in butter. Next, the vegetables from the marinade are strained out, added to the sauté pan and sprinkled with flour. This mixture is cooked for a bit before adding the rest of the marinade ingredients. All is brought to a boil and simmered for 2 minutes before putting in a hot 425°F oven for about 45 minutes.

While the rabbit is stewing in the oven, get out all the pots and pans you own! One is for boiling the potatoes until tender. Another is for glazing the pearl onions (or shallots in my case). Finally, a third pan is for crisping the bacon before sautéing the mushrooms. These accessories to the rabbit are delicious on their own. I ended up using cinnamon cap mushrooms that I had purchased at the Ottawa Farmers' Market on the weekend.

After the rabbit is cooked, remove the pieces and set aside while preparing the sauce. Strain the liquid, bring it to a boil and reduce it for a few minutes. Add the rabbit along with the onions, bacon and mushrooms and simmer to marry the flavors for about 5 minutes. Interestingly, the sauce is sometimes thickened with the animal's blood! Since I didn't have any leftover blood in my refrigerator (unlike Ms. Glaze at culinary school) I just let it simmer to reduce and thicken without any coagulating agents.

While the sauce simmers, I toasted the buttered bread for croutons. Finally, it is served with a garnish of the ever common parsley.

Recipe

Serves 6

3¾-pound rabbit

For the Marinade:
1 medium carrot, sliced
1 medium onion, sliced
2 cloves garlic, crushed
2 whole cloves
20 peppercorns
1 Bouquet Garni
4 cups dry red wine
3 tablespoons cognac
1 tablespoon vegetable oil

For the Stew:
7 tablespoons unsalted butter
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
Salt and freshly ground pepper
2 pounds waxy potatoes (red or white)
36 pearl onions
1 tablespoon sugar
5 ounces slab bacon, sliced ¼ inch thick
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
½ pound button or large, quartered mushrooms, trimmed, rinsed and dried

For the Croutons:
3 slices firm white bread, crusts removed
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
3 tablespoons chopped parsley
You can find the recipe for Civet de Lapin à la Française (Rabbit Stew with Red Wine) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home or here. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Serve with a rich red wine either from Burgundy or the Côtes du Rhône.

Tasting Notes
It has been several years since I tasted rabbit, and I wasn't expecting to like it as much as I did. It was moist and tender, definitely not gamey. It doesn't taste like chicken or pork. It has the meatiness of something in the middle, although the meat on the bone was a portion size fit for a petite person watching her girlish figure. Plus it's lean. In fact, it's leaner than beef, pork, or chicken. The rich, savory, slightly salty sauce and the mushroom-onion-bacon medley were the stars on the plate. And if you don't want to pull a rabbit out of your pot, use chicken.

Links
• Look and Taste: How To Skin A Rabbit (Warning: This video may be difficult for some viewers to watch.)
• On a Lighter Note: Rabbit Stew Cartoons
• Photo of Civet de Lapin à la Française (Rabbit Stew with Red Wine) from Dave, a Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Student who blogs

Next Class
• Soufflé au Comté (Cheese Soufflé) pages 82-83

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $1,384.52 + $18.15 (rabbit) + $22.98 (other ingredients) = $1,425.65
($6.85 per serving)

Butter used so far: 12 pounds, 20.5 tablespoons

. . . . . . . . . .

::Whisk Wednesdays::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.

It begins with a cow. And then a chicken. Followed by some fruit, bees and sugar cane. Whoever thought to put all these ingredients together and freeze them was brilliant.

We've been making lots of {smartie and kit kat} ice cream since buying a deluxe model ice cream maker, the Cuisinart Supreme Commercial Quality Ice Cream Maker - ICE-50BC, earlier this year and haven't purchased a tub from the grocery store since.

According to MakeIceCream.com, vanilla is the most popular flavor of ice cream at 29% followed by chocolate at 8.9%. Honey-peach wasn't in the top 15, but it was tasty.

Recipe

Makes about 1 quart (4 cups)

4 large ripe peaches (about 2 pounds), peeled and pitted
¼ cup honey
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 large egg yolks
½ cup sugar
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
You can find the recipe for Honey-Peach Ice Cream in the book Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. To see how the rest of the TWD group fared with this week's recipe, click here and then click on each blogger! Thanks to Tommi of Brown Interior who chose the recipe for this week and will post the recipe.

Tasting Notes
This ice cream was popular at our house. Though I found it a little subtle, everyone else loved it. I think it would be nice with a touch more peach flavor.

For a popular vanilla and coffee ice cream recipe, see Crème glacée vanilla (Vanilla ice cream) and Glace au café (Coffee ice cream).

Recipe for Next Week (June 23)
Andrea of Andrea In The Kitchen chose Coconut-Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise on pages 293-295.

"Tell me what you eat: I will tell you what you are."
— Brillat-Savarin

Today…
I am a bowl of cheerios with brown sugar and low-fat milk.
I am a venti non-fat latté with an extra shot {and sometimes whip} sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.
I am crunchy granola and vanilla yogurt.
I am an original Tim Tam.
I am a curried salmon salad on a homemade toasted sesame seed bagel.
{I am an A&W Teen burger, no pickles or onions.}
I am a glass of deep yellow vanilla chardonnay with tropical notes.
What are you?
A savarin is a French cake, similar to brioche since it contains yeast, but not as rich. It's named after Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin who was a famous politician, writer and gastronome from 18th century France. Brillat-Savarin wrote The Physiology of Taste, which has been called a "masterpiece on the subject of cooking as an art and eating as a pleasure" (according to Link).

Like brioche, the savarin ingredients are mixed to form a soft, sticky and shaggy ball that is left to grow under a damp cloth until doubled. Before baking, butter is slapped into the dough with "the fingertips of both hands." After putting it into your mold, it rests for another 15 minutes before baking.

While the savarin is cooling, you lovingly brush it with the melted syrup of sugar, rum and vanilla and then glaze it with warmed apricot jam.

Delicately placed slices of strawberries and kiwi garnish the dessert. And finally you add a spoonful of Chantilly cream or crème Chantilly, otherwise known as whipped cream, but according to ochef, "you have to dress up to eat it."

In the end you have a fancy, dense version of strawberry shortcake.

Recipe

Serves 6

For the Savarin:
1 cup all-purpose flour
¼ ounce fresh yeast or ¾ teaspoon dried yeast
1/3 cup warm milk
2 eggs, room temperature
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
Pinch salt
1 tablespoon sugar

For the Syrup:
1 cup sugar
¾ cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
¼ cup dark rum
¾ cup Apricot Glaze (1-2 tablespoons water heated with apricot jam)

2 kiwifruit, peeled and sliced thin
½ pint basket small fresh strawberries, hulled and halved

For the Chantilly Cream:
1¼ cups heavy cream
3 tablespoons confectioner's sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Unsalted butter, softened, for savarin mold (I used a bundt pan.)
You can find the recipe for Savarin aux Kiwis et aux Fraises (Rum Savarin with Kiwis and Strawberries) in the book Le Cordon Bleu at Home. To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!

Tasting Notes
This yeasty cake needs to be drenched and drowned in the rum syrup. Using homemade apricot jam and freshly-picked local berries would help improve the taste of this dessert. If you love strawberry shortcake, you'll enjoy this dessert but expect a little more chew in each bite of this clean, simple cake.

I am not a Savarin, but I am a dollop of crème Chantilly with a splash of rum syrup.
Links
• Baking Bites: Champagne Savarin
• Food History: Savarin Cake and the Celebrated Gourmand Brillat-Savarin
• Cannelle et Vanille: Lemon, Orange and Almond Savarin Cakes with Grapefruit Sorbet
• The Well-Seasoned Cook: Peaches and Dream – Peach Rum Savarin
• Gourmet: My Day on a Plate: Jacques Pépin

Next Class
• Menu 3, Part 1: Civet de Lapin à la Française (Rabbit Stew with Red Wine) pages 452-453

. . . . . . . . . .

Running total: $1,376.56 + $7.96 = $1,384.52
($1.33 per serving)

Butter used so far: 12 pounds, 11.5 tablespoons

. . . . . . . . . .

::Whisk Wednesdays::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.