Fox Supple (French cooking, `phfina-style)

I hate French cooking, okay? Here's why. It's called 'soufflé,' but it really should called 'French Egg Torture' as opposed to 'Chinese Water Torture,' 'cause that's what it is.

Here's the 'real' recipe for a Soufflé ...

No, wait. I guess I have to explain why I'm writing this recipe. So, I don't work all the time, you know. And I don't just go home and hide under the covers or go to group ... which I'm not anymore. So, like, if I were to become a coffee master at sbux, which I won't, I'd have to know what else is out there, I guess, so I went to Panera and had their soufflé, and the way it went is that they took a 4-cheese soufflé off their hot plate and served it to me. And I was like: 'This is easy! I could do this!'

So I did. That's why. So here's the recipe.

1 1/4 cup milk
3 Tbsp butter
3 Tbsp flour
2 tsp dry mustard
6 large eggs, separated into yolks and whites in two bowls
3/4 tsp salt
ground black pepper
cayenne
1 1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375°F


2. Make sure eggs are well-separated and beat the whites into a froth.


3. Heat milk (don't boil); set aside


4. Melt butter and mix it together with the mustard and flour


5. beat egg yolks with a fork and pour into heated milk mixture


6. Beat egg whites with a whisk until they form peaks ... make them nice and foamy


7. Fold the egg whites into the sauce, sprinkle in the grated cheese, mix together


8. Bake in a greased pan for 35-40 mins, serve immediately

Sounds simple, right?

But here's the catch, that 'beating the egg whites until foamy''? That's a lie ... or it doesn't tell the whole story. What should really be said is:

Beat egg whites until your arm falls off. Switch arms. Repeat until you run out of arms.

My arm fucking hurts. Even now, hours later.

The French.

My dad is French(-Italian), and so I have my whole experience of the French from him. His strong Gallic face. His joie de vivre. His love of food. His ... 'original' ... sense of humor.

He would create these Dad things in the kitchen, ... mostly pancakes flamés ... and proclaim his victory: "This is chicken coq au vin in wine ... get it? Chicken coq au vin in wine?" And then wait for us to admire his sense of humor.

Well, I had made the soufflé by the book, but I'm not going to do that again. Yes, it was light and airy. For like one minute, and then it deflated: a flat tire.

So here's my 'fox supple' ("faux soufflé") as my dad would say.

1 microwavable bowl, greased.
3 eggs, well-beaten.
cheese, grated (whatever's in the fridge, muenster, usually)
Milk
salt and pepper. garlic powder

1. combine ingredients.


2. microwave for 1 minute


3. It should be a bit runny. Remix in the bowl.


4. microwave for 1 minute


5. serve, don't burn your tongue

You can add sautéed mushrooms or whatever you'd like, but that's it, and the result? Indistinguishable from the 'real vrai egg soufflé.'

Well, there is one difference. About an hour of preparation time not wasted and an arm that doesn't have tennis elbow.

I did put in some flour the first time I tried my faux alternative, but then, you see, I'm sometimes on a health-food kick, and I never get off these things, so I was on the carrot diet so now I have carrots for juicing, and I have wheat bran, unprocessed, and I was on this unbleached, unprocessed, whole wheat flour so I have that instead of that other stuff, so when I did put that in that flour my fox supple (faux soufflé) tasted kinda ... wheaty.

Yuck.

So, live and learn, you know? So I got rid of that ingredient.

Call me Joan d'Arc and burn me at the stake, but my recipe takes all of ten minutes, tops, to make and to eat.

Kay. Nighty-night.