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Yahoo
12-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Julia Child's Boozy Secret To The Best Fruity Crepe Filling
Does anyone do it like Julia Child? I doubt she needs an introduction, but just in case you're not in the know, she's a storied chef who helped make cooking more accessible to the average American. She was a veritable pioneer in the fields of televised cooking, considering she was one of the first to have a cooking show broadcast to a wider audience. Among her many gems of cooking advice and recipes, you can find plenty of French-inspired dishes, since that was a central point of her cooking career. Today we'll take a look at Child's fruit crepes recipe, which she shared in her cookbook, "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," and the liquor that makes it so special. Crepes are, in and of themselves, a pretty tricky food to prepare. People spend hours in the kitchen working on their crepe tips and tricks, trying to nail the recipe to perfection. Child has plenty of advice on how to get a buttery, soft, thin crepe with a perfect crispness on the edges, but she also teaches about the joys of alcohol-based fruit marinades. According to her, you should take the fruit you intend to fill your crepe with and soak it in a mixture of sugar and either kirsch, cognac, or orange liqueur for an hour. Only after giving the flavors time to meld should you use them as a filling. Read more: 16 Best Bourbons To Use In Your Old Fashioned Why go through these extra steps to make alcohol-infused fruits for your crepe filling? The answer lies in the flavor profile and balance of the crepe and fruit. Crepes, when eaten alone, are actually a relatively mild-tasting dessert. The batter isn't enormously sweet or decadent, and it can actually lean savory with how much butter and how little sugar is in it. You can really go ham when you're deciding what to fill and top it with, an art that Japan has certainly nailed. Fresh fruits alone are tasty, but adding the sweetness and bite of a sugar and alcohol syrup provides an excellent contrast to the mellow flavors of the crepe itself. Kirsch, orange liqueur, and cognac are the best choices for their own fruity notes. They pair well with whatever fruit you choose for your filling (strawberries and bananas are super popular) and bring dimension to the alcohol, which by itself can be a little flat. You only want to add a sprinkle of liquor to the fruits, though. Too much, and your eyes will be watering. You can leave the fruit alone if you want a more traditional crepe, or heap in some whipped cream to make it decadent. Crepes are a versatile dessert, and Child was one for kitchen creativity, so don't be afraid to give some unique fruit and liquor combos a try. You may just find your new favorite dessert among them. Read the original article on Tasting Table.
Yahoo
06-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Want to work at this 3-star Michelin restaurant? First, you'll have to make a perfect omelet.
Chef Patrick O'Connell runs the three-star Michelin restaurant Inn at Little Washington in Virginia. Part of his kitchen audition is to make a perfect French omelet. O'Connell told Business Insider that an omelet can reveal a lot about a person's cooking background. Dinner at the Inn at Little Washington — chef Patrick O'Connell's famous three-star Michelin restaurant in Washington, Virginia — is no ordinary feast. The night could begin with an eggshell filled with roasted garlic custard, chanterelle mushrooms, and Parmesan foam. Midway, you might be served a chartreuse of savoy cabbage and lobster with a caviar beurre blanc. And for dessert? A cheesecake disguised as a perfect pear, complete with a single drop of water rolling down its curve. It's a menu full of technical finesse and prowess, but earning a spot to cook in O'Connell's kitchen begins with a far more basic dish: a simple omelet. If you're imagining the kind you'd find at your local Waffle House or Denny's — massive, floppy, bulging with cheese and veggies — you've already failed the interview. O'Connell expects the classic French version. "Americans have a very different sense of what an omelet is because they eat it in a diner on a griddle, and it's a sponge with one texture," O'Connell told Business Insider. "The French prize the egg cookery." O'Connell taught himself how to cook with Julia Child's seminal cookbook "Mastering the Art of French Cooking," which includes a recipe for the perfect French omelet. Decades later, her technique still resonates. "Julia's description for it was the best scrambled eggs encased in an envelope of egg, rolled and turned out onto the plate," O'Connell said. "It's luscious and absolutely wonderful, even without a filling." And, according to O'Connell, an omelet can reveal a lot about a person's cooking background. "Sometimes, they will give you a mess in the pan or a hard-cooked, floppy, one-dimensional kind of thing," he said. "But a proper French omelet takes a certain dexterity and skill. You can't think about anything else when those eggs are in the pan. It requires complete focus, illustrating that the simplest things are often the hardest." A great omelet isn't the only test. The aspiring chefs also need to make a salad, which O'Connell believes isn't as easy as it seems. "I think we've been corrupted by the concept of the salad bar," O'Connell said. "The role of a salad in the context of a meal is often as a sort of palate cleanser and a refreshing interlude. It's about choosing the greens very carefully, the crunch of the greens, the freshness of the greens. When made correctly, a salad can be intoxicating." "Rarely do you have somebody who gets it right off the bat," he added. "So then you begin to teach it." Once you've earned a spot in O'Connell's kitchen, you'll help feed some of the most powerful people in Washington, DC. Over the past four decades, the Inn at Little Washington has become a destination for the political elite — attracting presidents, senators, and Supreme Court justices. Among its famed fans were the Reagan, Kennedy, and Bush families. Still, O'Connell, who turned an abandoned gas station into the three-star Michelin restaurant, isn't fazed by his star-studded clientele. "This part of the world is very at ease with celebrities," he said. "They need to get away, and they want to go to a place where people aren't jumping up to either congratulate them or insult them. There's a certain invisibility here." Plus, it's hard to beat the Inn at Little Washington's breakfast menu, which, of course, includes a perfect French omelet. Read the original article on Business Insider
New York Times
31-03-2025
- General
- New York Times
How to Make an Omelet, the French Way
From history to technique, become an expert on this eggy classic. An omelet Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times Published March 31, 2025 Updated March 31, 2025 [This article was originally published on Feb. 13, 2017.] The omelet is the egg taken to its very highest form. With nothing more than salt and the tiniest amount of butter added, the omelet celebrates the richness of eggs without distracting from their delicacy. This guide is part of The New Essentials of French Cooking, the 10 definitive dishes every modern cook should master. The French have a genius for cooking with eggs. They poach them, they use them in sauces, they whip them into soufflés. And they fold them into omelets, an excellent introduction to that great tradition. Like much of French cuisine, the omelet represents the perfect intersection of a precise technique and a pristine ingredient. The more skilled the cook and the better the eggs, the more ethereal the result. The omelet is such an icon that it is often held up as the test of a chef's abilities. But it is also regarded as one of the fundamentals, among the first dishes Julia Child made on Boston public television for French cooking neophytes as she publicized 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking.' Whether made by a professional or a novice, it is undeniably speedy. As Child once said, introducing the dish: 'How about dinner in half a minute?' So what makes an omelet uniquely French? It is the exacting technique of folding the eggs to yield tender, loose curds in the center and a delicate but firm exterior. That juxtaposition sets the omelet apart from Italian frittatas, Spanish tortillas and Persian kukus, which are cooked into flat, sliceable cakes. We give a classic omelet recipe here, and another for an omelet mousseline, a fluffy variation in which the whites are whipped and then added to the yolks. An omelet can be made either savory or sweet, and although sweet omelets have all but fallen away these days, it might be time to resurrect them. After all, eggs can be seasoned with sugar and fruit or a syrupy jam as easily as with salt, onions and cheese; think of clafoutis, tarts and soufflés. Once you have mastered the basic technique, the variations are practically limitless. 'Mound of Butter' by Antoine Vollon (1833-1900) National Gallery of Art, Washington The omelet is ancient. Doubtlessly humans have eaten fried, beaten eggs since hens and other fowl were domesticated in the sixth century B.C. Romans had ovemele, eggs cooked with honey and pepper; Persians ate kuku, eggs fried with copious amounts of herbs. There were tortillas in early Spain, and frittatas in what would become Italy. All were fried cakes loaded with fillings — vegetables, meat, potatoes, spices and herbs — cooked on both sides until set, and then sliced so they could be eaten out of hand. Stefano Bianchetti/Corbis, via Getty Images But the fluffy French omelet we know is different. With its barely set eggs, it requires a spoon or fork to be eaten. The word, and variations of it, date to the mid-16th century — around the same time Catherine de Medici of Italy, who was married to King Henry II of France, is said to have introduced the fork to the French. Historians have speculated that the emergence of the fork and the evolution of the omelet may be intertwined. By the 17th century, the omelet entered the canon, appearing in La Varenne's 'Le Pâtissier François' (1653) as an aumelette. The arrival of better stoves with enclosed fires, in the 18th century, made it easier for cooks to prepare omelets because they could more easily regulate the heat. The omelet's popularity has only grown and endured, making it a staple today around the world in restaurants and home kitchens alike. Omelet pan. If you don't own a nonstick pan or a seasoned, carbon-steel omelet pan, now is the time to invest in a good one. It will be difficult to master an omelet in a stainless-steel pan or cast-iron skillet; those heavier pans are too hard to maneuver. Buy something easy to handle that adjusts to heat changes quickly. Spatula. A heat-resistant rubber spatula is an excellent all-purpose kitchen tool. Here, you'll use it for stirring and folding the eggs. Wirecutter, a product recommendations website owned by The New York Times Company, has guides to the best nonstick pans and spatulas . This recipe is for a basic French omelet with three eggs: enough for a hearty breakfast or brunch, or a light supper for one. The key to mastering this recipe is controlling the heat so the eggs do not brown, and whisking the eggs in the skillet so they set on the exterior but remain fluffy inside. A good nonstick or well-seasoned carbon-steel skillet is central to cooking the ideal omelet, which should be tender and slightly runny. Once you've got the technique down, you can play around with your seasonings, adding minced herbs, grated cheese, diced ham or sautéed vegetables. This recipe is part of The New Essentials of French Cooking, a guide to definitive dishes every modern cook should master. By The New York Times Cooking The omelet is extraordinarily simple, and so it pays to choose your ingredients smartly and practice the cooking techniques at the stove. European-style butter is best for an omelet because the fat content is slightly higher than that of most American-style butters. Always use unsalted butter, then add salt to the eggs, so you have greater control over the seasoning. Use good eggs, preferably local. Eggs are the main component of this dish; the more flavorful they are, the better your omelet will be. They should be at room temperature, to allow your omelet to cook quickly and evenly. Leave them on the counter for an hour before cooking, or let them sit covered in warm water for 20 minutes. Don't overbeat your eggs. Beat them lightly, just until the white and yolks are well mixed and uniform in color, but not airy or bubbly. If you introduce too much air into the eggs by whipping them, you'll end up with something closer to an omelet mousseline (see the recipe below) rather than the classic dish. For fluffier eggs, add up to a tablespoon of diced cold butter into the beaten eggs before cooking. Use an absolutely clean frying pan. Don't cook the eggs in bacon fat or any singed leftovers that will alter the look and taste of your omelet. Be judicious with the butter in the pan. You just need enough to coat the pan lightly but thoroughly — about 1 tablespoon. Do not use too much, or the eggs will be heavy and greasy rather than light. For extra flavor, brown the butter in the pan before adding the eggs. For richer eggs, after folding the omelet, smear the top with softened butter or crème fraîche before serving. This is also a good way to get garnishes to stick to the top, caviar and herbs in particular. You've got three main technique options for cooking an omelet. While all will get you to the same end result of ethereal scrambled eggs encased in a gossamer shell, cooks generally prefer one method over the others. Try them, and see which one works best for you. Note that all are doing the same thing: introducing air into the eggs by beating them until they are fluffy, then letting the bottom set so it holds all those light, eggy curds. As with any new technique, practice makes all the difference here. So after choosing the method you like best, practice it until you get it just right for your taste. You can fold your omelet either in half or thirds as desired. Both are traditional. Pour the eggs into the hot pan, and immediately start beating them with a fork until fluffy. Once curds begin to form, stop beating and let the bottom of the eggs set for a few seconds before tossing the pan or using a fork to fold the eggs over themselves, either in half or thirds. Pour the eggs into the hot pan, then vigorously swirl the pan, shaking it back and forth to agitate the eggs until the center is fluffy and filled with large curds of eggs, and the bottom sets. Shake some more until the eggs start to flip over themselves, then slide the omelet onto a plate, either in half, or use a fork or spatula to fold into thirds. Pour the eggs into the hot pan and let them set for a few seconds. Lift the set edges with a spatula or fork to let uncooked egg run underneath, pushing the cooked part of the eggs into the center of the pan to form large, fluffy curds. Repeat this until the eggs are set on the bottom and just cooked in the center. Then use the spatula or fork to fold the eggs, either in half or thirds. Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times In France, omelets are often served plain, or with a sprinkle of minced herbs. When they are filled, it is with discretion, just enough to complement the flavor of the eggs without overwhelming them. Use ¼ cup to ⅓ cup filling for a three-egg omelet, or less with highly flavorful ingredients like herbs and strong cheeses. According to the French chef Jacques Pépin, the classic herbs for omelets are chives, chervil, tarragon and parsley — soft herbs that you can mince. Add the herbs to the bowl along with the eggs and beat everything together. Vegetables of all kinds make great additions to omelets. They all need to be cooked first, in any way you like. Feel free to use leftovers if you have sautéed or roasted vegetables from last night's dinner. Try spinach, kale, mushrooms, onion, shredded zucchini, shredded turnip, broccoli, corn, eggplant, diced cooked potatoes or roasted peppers. Cubed ripe tomato can be added raw, though it is a good idea to seed it first. Meat can give an omelet savory heft. Use diced ham or salami; cooked, crumbled sausages; cooked chicken or turkey; browned pancetta or bacon; or diced leftover roasted meats (roast beef or pork or lamb) and leftover stew meats. Even that little bit of leftover beef Bourguignon can find new purpose in life folded into an omelet. Cooked flaked fish, either left over or freshly prepared, works beautifully in an omelet. Any kind of fish will work, from the lightest, flakiest sole to more robust salmon or sardines. Chopped cooked shrimp and scallops are lovely. You could also use canned fish such as tuna or salmon; flake the fish first and blot away any excess oil with paper towels. Diced smoked salmon is a more deluxe omelet filling, as is caviar — either pricey sturgeon roe, or more affordable salmon or trout roe. Add caviar to the omelet after cooking, when it is already on the plate, and do so just before serving. It is more of a garnish than a filling. A dollop of crème fraîche or sour cream works particularly well alongside. You can add any kind of cheese to an omelet, both shredded or grated cheeses such as Cheddar, Gruyère, Parmesan or mozzarella, and diced soft cheese, including soft goat cheese, cream cheese, or ripe Brie or Camembert (remove the rind or not, to taste). Crumbled blue cheese and feta also work well. Jam is nice with either a regular omelet or a mousseline omelet, but skip the black pepper. Use 2 to 3 tablespoons of any flavor jam or fruit compote, then sift powdered sugar over the top of the omelet when done.
New York Times
27-03-2025
- General
- New York Times
Our Ultimate Guide to Making Soufflé
Impress your friends and family with a restaurant-worthy result (that isn't even that hard to pull off). Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times Published March 27, 2025 Updated March 27, 2025 [This article was originally published on Feb. 14, 2017.] A hallmark of French cooking, the soufflé is like magic. It uses nothing more than air to transform workaday eggs into a lofty masterpiece, puffing and browning in the oven before collapsing at first bite. This guide is part of The New Essentials of French Cooking, the 10 definitive dishes every modern cook should master. In 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking,' their profoundly influential 1961 cookbook, Julia Child, Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle describe the soufflé as the 'epitome and triumph of the art of French cooking.' A half-century later, soufflé remains as vital as ever, as successive generations of chefs revisit and refresh the classic recipe. A soufflé has two main components , a flavorful bas e and glossy beaten egg whites , and they are gently folded together just before baking. The word itself comes from 'souffler,' meaning 'to breathe' or 'to puff,' which is what the whites do to the base once they hit the oven's heat. The base may be made either savory or sweet . Savory soufflés usually incorporate cheese, vegetables, meat or seafood and are appropriate for a light dinner or lunch, or as a first course. They require a substantial and stable base, in the form of a cooked sauce that often involves butter, egg yolks and some kind of starch (flour, rice or cornstarch). Sweet soufflés, with fruit, chocolate or liquors , make spectacular desserts. The base can be made from a fruit purée, or a sweet, rich sauce. Soufflés are found all over France, with each region applying its own spin. In Alsace, cooks use kirsch. In Provence, goat cheese or eggplant are excellent additions. And naturally, Roquefort cheese is a popular addition in Roquefort. The menu at Le Soufflé, a restaurant in Paris. Courtesy of The New York Public Library Marie-Antoine Carême, the father of French haute cuisine, is credited with perfecting and popularizing the soufflé, publishing his recipe in 'Le Pâtissier Royal Parisien' in 1815. (The first recipe had appeared in 1742, in Vincent La Chapelle's 'Le Cuisinier Moderne.') Initially, Carême made his soufflés in stiff pastry casings called croustades that were lined with buttered paper. Soon after, vessels were developed just for making souffles, deep dishes with straight sides, for the tallest rise. Carême went on to create several variations, including Soufflé Rothschild, named after his employer, one of the richest men in France; it contained candied fruit macerated in a liquor containing flecks of gold. (Contemporary versions substitute more attainable kirsch for the golden elixir.) As the soufflé evolved, the number of variations grew. By the time Auguste Escoffier published 'Le Guide Culinaire' in 1903, which codified the classic recipes of French cuisine, more than 60 soufflé variations were in common use, with versions that incorporated ingredients as varied as Parmesan cheese, foie gras, escarole, pheasant, violets, almonds and tea. A layered soufflé called a Camargo alternated stripes of tangerine and hazelnut soufflé batters in the same dish. 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking,' published nearly six decades later, offered several recipes, including a version called Soufflé Vendôme, in which cold poached eggs are layered into the unbaked soufflé mixture. After baking, the eggs warm up slightly, releasing their runny yolks when the soufflé is broken. Despite a movement in France in recent years that called for a more experimental take on traditional cuisine, there is still a place for perfect soufflé. And while chefs may innovate upon the classic version, those first 18th-century recipes are still very much in use. The soufflé has a pan created just for it, a deep ceramic dish with straight sides. Ceramic holds the heat evenly, so the center cooks at nearly the same rate as the edges, and the sides direct the expanding air upward, to give the most rise. A heavy metal charlotte mold also works. Or use a shallow oven-safe dish, like a gratin dish or a skillet. The soufflé won't rise as high, but it will still puff up. (It will likely cook faster, so watch it carefully.) You will achieve better results beating the whites in a metal mixing bowl rather than in a plastic, glass or ceramic bowl. Plastic can retain oily residue, and glass and ceramic are slippery, making it harder to get the whites to cling and climb up the sides. This is especially important if you are beating the whites by hand. Stainless steel or copper work best. Using an electric mixer, whether it is a hand-held model or a stand mixer, makes the work of beating egg whites go faster and easier than if you were to use a whisk and your arms. Wirecutter, a product recommendations website owned by The New York Times Company, has a guide to the best stand mixers . A savory or sweet dish in which a roux or purée is mixed with egg yolks and whipped whites and baked until light and ethereal. By Meg Felling The primary technique for making a tall and airy soufflé is the proper beating of the egg whites. Once you learn it, a whole fluffy world opens up, rich with spongecakes, mousses and foams. How to separate eggs. By Alexandra Eaton Always use eggs at room temperature or even warm, for the highest rise . Cold egg whites won't beat up as loftily. To get cold eggs to temperature quickly, soak them in their shells in warm water for 20 minutes. Make sure your hands are clean. If there is any trace of oil or grease on them and you touch the egg whites, the soufflé may not puff. Crack your eggs on a flat surface , like the countertop, instead of on the rim of the bowl. That way, you are less likely to shatter the shell and pierce the yolk. There are two ways to separate eggs. The first is to hold the cracked egg over a bowl and pass the yolk between shells, letting the white slip into the bowl. Gently drop the yolk in into a separate, smaller bowl. Take care: The sharp edge of the shell can easily pierce the yolk, allowing it to seep into the white. The other method requires you to strain the whites through your fingers, but it ensures that yolks do not creep into the whites. First, set up three bowls. Hold your hand over one bowl and drop the cracked egg into your palm, letting the white run through your fingers into the bowl. Drop the yolk into the second bowl. Inspect the white for traces of yolk. If there are none, slip the white into the third bowl. Repeat with remaining eggs. Using that first bowl as a way station for each freshly cracked white before it gets added to the main bowl of pristine whites helps ensure no yolk contaminates the mixture. How to beat egg whites. By Alexandra Eaton Well-beaten, stable whites are the key to a gorgeously puffy soufflé. So don't rush this step. The slower you go, the better your chances for success. Take a moment to make sure there are no traces of yolk or any fat in the egg whites or the bowl. (Egg yolk will impede the whites from frothing.) Adding a little bit of acid (in our recipes, cream of tartar) helps stabilize the egg foam , and also helps prevent overbeating. Beating the whites in a copper bowl will produce a similar result without the added acid, which is why copper bowls were historically considered essential for making meringues. If you are using a stand mixer, c heck the bottom of the bowl every now and then for unbeaten egg whites . Sometimes the whites pool there, and when you go to incorporate the meringue into the base, those whites will deflate the overall soufflé. Whisk any pooled whites by hand into the rest of the meringue and continue beating with the machine. Beat until the meringue is just able to hold stiff peaks. This means that when you lift the whisk out of the meringue, it will create a little cowlick that stays upright without drooping as you gently move the whisk. It should look glossy, or be just starting to lose its shine. Don't overbeat (which will make the foam turn grainy and dry) or underbeat (which won't give the proper lift). If you overbeat your whites, you might be able to rescue them by beating in another egg white. This often restores them. Folding eggs into a soufflé. By Alexandra Eaton The goal in folding the egg whites into the base is to work quickly and use a light touch . This lightens the base, making it easier to fold in the rest of the meringue mixture all at once. Fold in a C shape, as demonstrated in the video above: Starting in the middle of the bowl, drag the thin edge of a spatula down like a knife, then tilt and scoop up a spatula full of the soufflé base, making sure to scrape the bottom of the bowl. Turn the batter over, away from your body, back into the middle of the bowl. Shift the bowl 45 degrees, and repeat. Stop folding when the streaks of white have just disappeared — or rather, when they have almost disappeared. A few white streaks are preferable to overfolding, which deflates the batter. Buttering the soufflé dish, then coating the butter with something with a bit of texture, is essential for the rise . If the soufflé dish were to be just buttered, the soufflé would slip down the sides instead of climbing. An additional thin coating of granulated sugar, bread crumbs, ground nuts or grated cheese creates a rough texture for the egg whites to hold onto as they rise. If your soufflé dish isn't big enough to accommodate all of the batter, you can extend it by tying a buttered piece of parchment paper or foil around the rim of the soufflé dish to increase its volume. For individual soufflés, use small ramekins placed on a rimmed baking sheet so they are easy to get in and out of the oven. Reduce the cooking time of a larger soufflé by about half. Heat matters. Make sure the oven is preheated ; that initial hot blast expands the air trapped inside the bubbly foam of batter, which makes it rise. Having the soufflé base hot or warm when you fold in the egg whites helps the temperature rise quickly, too. Baking the soufflé on a preheated baking sheet on the bottom of the oven helps the soufflé cook on the bottom as well as the top, producing a more even result. The baking sheet will also catch any overflow. Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times For a higher rise, rub your thumb around the inside rim of the soufflé dish to create a gap between the dish and the batter. (Many soufflé dishes already have a groove there to help.) If you want a perfectly flat top to your soufflé, level the foam with the back of a knife before baking , and before running your thumb around the edge of the dish. Or you could leave the foam as it is, for a more natural, wavy look. Julia Child preferred a natural top; pastry chefs tend to prefer a flat top. A soufflé is done baking when it has risen above the rim of the dish and is nicely browned on top. It should feel mostly firm and only slightly jiggly when you lightly tap the top. Flourless soufflés, such as those made with fruit purée or chocolate, are lighter and cook faster. (Chocolate soufflés can also be intentionally underbaked for a gooey chocolate interior. The soufflé should be a tad wiggly when gently shaken but firm around the edges.) Thicker soufflés made with flour, like a cheese soufflé, don't rise as much in the oven, but won't collapse as much either. Use the window of your oven to monitor the soufflé, and don't open the oven door until you see the soufflé puff up over the sides of the dish. Once it has done that, you can safely open the oven and check on it. If the top of your soufflé starts to brown too fast, top it with a round of parchment paper. All soufflés fall within minutes of coming out of the oven , because the hot air bubbles contract when they hit cooler air. That's why you need to serve them immediately after baking. But as long as you don't overfold the whites, and you resist opening the oven door until the last few minutes of baking, your soufflé will rise gloriously before the dramatic and expected collapse. You can prepare any soufflé batter ahead, but you will probably lose some volume. Assemble the soufflé in its dish, then set it aside in a warm place without drafts for up to four hours. Julia Child recommends turning your largest soup pot over the soufflé, and that would work. But any draft-free space is fine. A draft could deflate the foam. Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times Savory soufflés are usually served by themselves, but sweet soufflés often have a sauce on the side, to be poured into the center of the soufflé after you've dug in your spoon. Or opt for ice cream, which provides a thrilling hot-cold contrast. Either will deflate the soufflé, so add it after your guests have had a chance to admire it. Francesco Tonelli for The New York Times
Atlantic
08-03-2025
- General
- Atlantic
Kosher Salt Is Actually Just Big Salt
When I was a child, in the 1990s, there was only one kind of salt; we called it 'salt.' It came in a blue cylindrical container—you probably know the one—and we dumped it into pasta water and decanted it into shakers. I didn't know that any other kind existed, and the women who taught me to cook didn't seem to, either: Joy of Cooking, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and Moosewood Cookbook all call, simply, for 'salt' in their recipes. But about a decade ago, I started buying coarse kosher salt instead of the fine, uniform, iodized table salt I'd grown up with. I do not remember why. As my friends grew up and started building their own pantries, many of them also made kosher salt their default. These days, The New York Times calls explicitly for kosher salt in nearly all of its recipes, as does Bon Appétit. Two of the most influential cookbooks of the past decade, The Food Lab, by J. Kenji López-Alt, and Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat, by Samin Nosrat, both devote paragraphs to the benefits of kosher over table salt. It is now 'the lingua franca of restaurant kitchens'—as Mark Bitterman, who has written four books about cooking with salt, put it—and a cheffy shibboleth in home kitchens, too. You can find Diamond Crystal, the coolest brand, in the background of the famously verisimilitudinous restaurant show The Bear, and on cooking influencers' beautiful countertops; in 2023, when Trader Joe's started carrying it, chef Reddit exploded in enthusiastic all caps. Pretty much everyone eats salt, every day, and it's different now. Yet even kosher salt's most fervent converts may not entirely understand how it's different. Kosher salt, like all salt, is NaCl—sodium ions electrostatically bound with chloride ions and arranged in a crystal formation. Unlike certain specialty salts, it doesn't have unique properties by virtue of its provenance; it's not collected from the coast of France or mined from a mountain in Pakistan. Kosher salt is just big salt. It's also more expensive than table salt. You might assume that this is because it has been manufactured according to a stringent set of religious rules. But much iodized table salt is kosher—that is, prepared in adherence with Jewish dietary law—and what we call 'kosher salt' isn't categorically kosher: If you're feeling pedantic, the right term would be 'koshering salt,' because its oversize, craggy crystals are best for drawing the blood out of animals during kosher slaughter. America's great salt swap began in the 1980s, when farmers'-market culture and the health-food movement helped American chefs acquaint themselves with specialty ingredients, Bitterman told me: Himalayan pink salt; 'bad-ass, real good' fleur de sel from France. But by and large, chefs settled on kosher as their go-to. They did this for a reason so unbelievably basic that I laughed out loud when I first heard it: Kosher salt is easier to pick up. 'Table salt is too hard to pinch,' Adam Ragusea, a food YouTuber, told me. 'I mean, just try it. Anyone who's reading, just try it. Just pick it up … It's a pain in the ass, and it's messy.' Kosher salt is simply better for the way chefs tend to season their food, which is frequently, and without measuring, by eye and by feel. No one wants to be fiddling with a teaspoon on the line at a busy restaurant during the dinner rush. 'You can really feel it sort of touching your fingers, and leaving your fingers,' Chris Morocco, the food director at Bon Appétit and Epicurious, told me, whereas finer salt 'has a tendency to want to slip away.' Kosher salt's migration to home kitchens started in the late '90s, when the Food Network became a cultural force. Its big crystals suddenly had an added benefit: They look great being pinched out of a saltcellar and flung around on television, or at least better than table salt does being juddered out of a shaker. (Ina Garten, one of the network's early celebrities, has described Diamond Crystal kosher salt as 'always perfect.') As television turned chefs into celebrities, their fans began trying to emulate them at home. At the same time, recipes, like the rest of media, were moving online, and their tone was changing. Older cookbooks, Morocco told me, assumed a lot of knowledge on the part of their readers: 'Recipe language was very terse. They were not really holding your hand too much.' Online, recipe writers had unlimited space, a broader potential audience, and a business imperative to build a relationship with their readers. So their guidance became chattier and more descriptive, designed for a home cook who was eager to learn—and who could hold recipe developers more immediately accountable, yelling about bland soup or bad bakes in the comments section. 'Salt to taste,' which had for decades been a standard instruction in most savory recipes, gave way to specific measurements. But different salts have different densities, meaning a teaspoon of one brand can be recipe-ruiningly saltier than that of another. So recipe developers needed to be able to recommend a standard salt. Being chefs, they already liked kosher. In 2011, Bon Appétit, which was then becoming a major resource for Millennials teaching themselves how to cook, adopted Diamond Crystal as its house salt. This is all a little funny. Restaurant chefs started using kosher precisely because it was easy to use without measuring—now home cooks are measuring it out by the teaspoon. And a movement that espoused seeking the ideal ingredients for every dish resulted in widespread adoption of a one-size-fits-all salt. In doing so, modern cooking has inadvertently all but abandoned one of the most significant public-health advances in history. A few years ago, a 6-year-old girl showed up at a medical clinic in Providence, Rhode Island, her neck so swollen that it looked like she'd swallowed a grapefruit whole. After a series of tests, doctors figured it out: She was iodine-deficient. Her thyroid—the butterfly-shaped gland that is responsible for just about everything the body does, and which requires iodine to function—had swelled in an attempt to capture any microgram of iodine it could from her bloodstream. For centuries, thyroid dysfunction was endemic; millions of people around the world suffered from slow heartbeats, weakness, muscle fatigue, sluggish metabolism, and brain fog. When, in 1924, American manufacturers introduced artificially iodized salts, it was a miracle, right there on the shelf in the grocery store. Within a few years, the thyroids of the developed world were working again. Recently, however, doctors have started reporting more cases of iodine-deficient hypothyroidism—and our salt preferences may be at least partially to blame. Kosher salt, as you have probably guessed, does not contain iodine. Neither do most ultraprocessed foods, the main vehicle by which most people in this not-exactly-sodium-deficient country take in salt. Iodine deficiency can be serious, but is eminently treatable. (Pregnant women should be particularly attentive to their iodine levels, the UCLA endocrinologist Angela Leung told me, because deficiency can result in birth defects.) The 21st-century rise in hypothyroidism might therefore be less a cause for alarm than a chance to rethink our contemporary salt orthodoxy. Kosher's dominance, to hear Bitterman tell it, 'doesn't come out of magic or merit—it's cookbook writers and chef culture, a weird confluence of circumstances brainwashing everyone at the same time.' What's great for chefs may not be great for home cooks. Kosher salt isn't inherently better, and in some cases may be worse. I've now spent hours on the phone with salt connoisseurs—at one point, Bitterman earnestly described a certain type as 'luscious' and 'warm'—and have come around to the view that we should all be more open to using different salts for different purposes, in the same way that well-outfitted cooks might keep different types of olive oil on hand. Flaky fleur de sel is great for finishing dishes; flavored salt is perfect on popcorn. And for everyday cooking, iodized table salt is just as good as kosher—preferable, even, if you're worried about your iodine levels. Sure, all the recipes now call for kosher salt, but a solution exists: Ignore the instructions and season intuitively. Like a real chef would.
