I forgot how DMV can be a nightmare, waiting for your number 389 when the current number is 210 can be the story of an afternoon. So people bring balls to play with, and all kinds of entertainment to spend three to four hours.  I somehow like to observe people, it’s certainly more interesting to observe people sur la terrasse d’un café, in a cafe terrace with a coffee in your hands, so when your hands are holding nothing more than a number, patience becomes a virtue and people looking becomes one too.

I had prepared this gratin in advance so it just needed to be gratiné when I got home and that’s the beauty of gratins, you can prepare them in advance and throw them in the oven when ready to be served.

I have used goat milk in soufflés and in the béchamel when preparing gratins that turned out lighter with a more delicate touch than with cow milk, and partly due to the fact that goat milk is lighter to digest than regular milk. You can slightly taste to goat milk which is not as strong as in cheeses. Basically you can replace goat milk in many dishes using cow milk. Gratins are very common in France and can be made with any vegetable.

Gratin can be considered a plat unique (a one meal dish), and universally appreciated, it’s certainly a meal in itself with a side salad. If you feel like something hot with a golden crust, stop thinking, this is it. Some people are fighting to eat the crispy crust while others are fighting to get to the soft melting middle. What type of gratin eater are you? I am definitely a crust lover, but would not mistreat the middle either. No matter how you eat it, gratins always evoke a comforting and warm cuisine that everyone loves.

I would use premium gruyère cheese that melts well and leaves a nice golden crust the quality of the cheese is important and will make a great difference in the texture of your gratin. Also, you could add a little goat cheese as well instead of adding gruyère in the mixture but gruyère on top is a must if you want a golden and melting crust.

Ingredients for 2-3

• 1 medium cauliflower, broken into florets
• 1 leek, cut in 1 inch chunks
• 1 shallot, chopped
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 3 tbs butter
• 1.5 tbs flour
• 1.5 cup goat milk
• 5 tbs imported Gruyère cheese
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Heat olive oil in a pan, add shallots and brown them. Add leeks, adjust with salt and pepper and cover with lid until leeks are tender.

Cook cauliflower in salted boiling water until cooked but still firm. Drain and set aside.

Start preparing the béchamel by melting butter, then adding flour. Stir well. Add milk, salt and pepper and reduce temperature to medium heat. Keep stirring until the mixture starts thickening. Cook for a few minutes until it has reached a nice consistency, but should not be too thick.

Using individual ramequins or one larger dish, add one layer of leeks, then add one layer of cauliflower and end with another layer of leeks. Sprinkle with 1 tbs gruyère cheese (or goat cheese for each ramequin) and pour béchamel. Try to coat your vegetables with cheese and bechamel by mixing the vegetables carefully. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese, grind fresh pepper and cook in a pre-heated oven at 370F for about 30 minutes or until the gratin has reached a golden brown color.

I cannot tell you for how long I wanted to make this soufflé with goat milk. I made a vegetable gratin with goat milk that was delicious so I wanted to use this delicate milk in a soufflé and see what would come out. I really loved it’s lightness and subtle flavor. I think from now on, I will use goat milk instead in such dishes. Goat milk is whiter than cow milk and is lighter, has a softer and more subtle flavor. It also has more calcium, magnesium, potassium and vitamin A. In France it’s even recommended for kids around one year of age who tend to be allergic to cow milk, since goat milk is closer to maternal milk. So it’s a milk full of great nutrients.

Soufflé is a typical French dish, it’s cheap and quick, so should be appealing to many people. The combination of carrots and squash adds a very unique and pleasant sweetness to this dish. The nutty flavor of Taleggio leaves a wonderful after taste. Taleggio is an Italian cheese that I use quite often in my dishes, it melts beautifully and has a very distinct flavor, Sometimes I substitute it to Gruyère cheese, it melts as nicely and has more flavor.

For soufflé, you need to make a thick béchamel base and beat the whites quite stiffly. It’s very easy to make, then you enter the infinite world of soufflé, and can make as many kinds than your imagination lets you. The individual vegetable or seafood soufflés are perfect as an appetizer with a salad.

Watch out it, soufflé rises, then falls quite quickly, so you need to serve it right away.

Ingredients for 4

• 8.8 oz (or 250 g) carrots, peeled and cut in chunks
• 8.8 oz (or 250 g) squash, peeled and cut
• 0.88 oz (or 25 g) butter
• 0.88 oz (or 25 g) flour
• 6.76 fl oz (or 200 ml) goat milk (I used low fat)
• 3 eggs (yolks and whites separated)
• 2 tbs Taleggio, diced
• salt and pepper

Preparation

First steam carrots and squash. When well cooked, mash with a potato masher and reduce in a purée. Set aside.

Start making the béchamel. Melt butter in a pan, add flour, stir well then add milk gradually. Adjust with salt and pepper.

Add carrots/squash purée to the béchamel and mix well, let it cool down and add yolks. Mix well. Add Taleggio, and stir to get a smooth mixture.

Beat whites into a stiff consistency, and carfelly add to the béchamel mixture.

Fill buttered ramequins to the 3/4 and cook in a pre-heated oven at 375 until the soufflé rises and turns golden on top.

Serve immediately.