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National Cheese Souffle Day

Five Food Finds about Soufflet

1. A souffle is essentially a simple white sauce enriched with egg yolk. Stiff egg whites are folded right into the mixture. At this point, you can add whatever flavor you like: cheese, vegetables, chocolate or fruit.
2. The secret to a great souffle is to beat the egg whites into stiff white peak consistency and to fold them carefully into the sauce to keep as much air in the mixture as possible.
3. Savory souffles are often too light for a main course, but the addition of chicken and spinach here bolsters this into a substantial main course. When you break into it with your fork, the seductive aroma of cheese, chicken and spinach pours out. It’s elegant, airy and fluffy.
4. The secret to success is making sure your timing is just right. So plan ahead carefully; figure out what you will be serving first — such as a salad or soup — and time the souffle to go into the oven as you sit down for your first course.
5. You can wait for a souffle, but a souffle waits for no one. You don’t want to serve a deflated souffle.

Today’s Food History

on this day in…

1808 Elijah Craig died. A Baptist minister in Kentucky, he is an important figure in the invention of Bourbon Whiskey. He ran a paper mill and started a distillery in 1789. Legend credits him with being the first to use new charred oak barrels to age corn whiskey, which is a key step in making bourbon.

1935 Allan Burns was born.  Screenwriter and producer, co-creator of The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda.  He also created the character Captain Horatio Magellan Crunch for Quaker Oats ‘Cap’n Crunch’  breakfast cereal.

1955 Chow Yun-Fat was born. Internationally famous Hong Kong actor.

1995 Elisha Cook Jr. died. A well known character actor in films and TV. I remember him mainly in his role as Wilmer, in the ‘Maltese Falcon’.

2001 Hong Kong ordered more than 1 million chickens and other poultry killed to halt the spread of another bird flu epidemic.