♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ - This week on Milk Street, we bake it up.

We start at Seattle at Le Pichet Cafe.

We do a mile high quiche, which is amazing, then a very simple cranberry and candied ginger buckle.

And, finally, from Vivian Howard in North Carolina, a sweet corn pudding, which is actually a soufflé.

Please stay tuned as we take some old recipes and make them new again.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following: - For 25 years, Consumer Cellular's goal has been to provide wireless service that helps people communicate and connect.

We offer a variety of no-contract plans, and our U.S.-based customer service team can help find one that fits you.

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♪ ♪ - You know, I get to Seattle every fall.

It's always sunny, by the way.

Never rains in Seattle when I'm there, but I go to Le Pichet.

It's a little French restaurant, kind of a bistro.

So one year, I noticed they had quiche.

- I love the story you wrote with this recipe about how you discovered French food as a teenager.

- Yeah, I was 16, it was 1967 in Paris.

I was running away from my parents, of course, on the trip.

And I ended up in this little bistro and had a great meal.

And I just fell in love with French food, because they treated you like an adult.

- Right.

- And the food was adult.

It was the first real grown up food I'd had.

So quiche, you know, goes in that category.

It's sort of grown-up food... - It is.

- But it's still a great recipe.

- And it has a homemade crust.

We are gonna start by adding the cubed butter to the flour with a little bit of salt, and we're going to toss that together so that all the cubes of butter get coated.

We're going to put this in the freezer for ten minutes.

This is just a little trick, because using a processor, there's some heat that gets generated, and we want to make sure the butter stays nice and firm.

So we are making this in the processor today, and now we're simply going to pulse this about ten times until the butter is in pea-sized pieces.

That's only step one.

(processor pulsing) That looks good.

So this is why we started with the cubes all of the same size because you want these little pieces to be approximately the same size.

So now it's time to add the water.

You also want the water very cold, just like the butter.

So we had put ice in this previously and taken it out, and now we have five tablespoons in here.

Just going to drizzle that in all at once.

This is a little bit unusual in that regard, and then we'll process this until it becomes clumpy, not fully into a ball, but just clumpy.

That's clumpy.

- So you're working this dough pretty hard in the food processor.

Normally, you just cut the butter in the flour, take it out into a bowl, add the water... - We've given it a little bit of a workout, the butter was in pea-size pieces, now it's completely incorporated.

It's a very short, tender, delicate structure.

Okay, we're just going to turn this on to the counter.

I'm going to shape it about, into a six-inch disk, and... we'll use our plastic wrap to finish shaping it.

What this does, you can actually use the plastic wrap to pull the edges together, and then we'll just press it a little bit thinner.

And this is just a little head start to rolling it out.

Now because we have developed some of the gluten in there, we want to put this in the fridge and let it rest for about an hour, and then we will be ready to roll it.

Okay, so while that is chilling, we'll start melting the butter.

This is one yellow onion, chopped, and... sliced cremini mushrooms.

And of course... un peu de sel.

That means a little salt in French.

- (chuckles) Thank you.

Peu de sel, thank you very much, that's... - So as this cooks down, both the onions and the mushrooms will release a lot of liquid.

They'll also start browning.

We're going to let all the liquid evaporate.

This will take about 15 minutes.

♪ ♪ So this is ready, as you can see there's no more liquid in there.

Concentrated flavors, and now, of course, we have to add a little bit of white wine, and we'll bring that back up to a simmer and cook until all the wine is evaporated as well.

The liquid goes away, but the flavor stays in here.

So about three minutes, we'll keep an eye on that and we will start making the custard.

The silkiness of it is important.

It's the six eggs that contribute to that lightness.

So if you would do the honors of whisking the eggs, please.

We found we loved the silky texture that crème fraîche adds to this, as well as that little bit of tanginess, too.

- You know, crème fraîche is sort of a secret ingredient.

You could make an ice cream with crème fraîche and heavy cream.

- Yes.

- It also turns out really silky and smooth, you know.

- Okay... Whisk in the heavy cream.

Because heaven forbid we use light cream with this.

Now we have our seasoning blend here.

It's salt and pepper, of course, with a little bit of cayenne, just a little bit, and some freshly grated nutmeg.

And this is a really nice way to season this.

Just get that going.

You know, this is not a lot of seasoning, it's very subtle.

Okay, so our custard is done now.

We need to refrigerate it until we're ready to use it.

And look at this... beautiful.

All the wine is evaporated, but you can smell it still in there.

Now we're going to transfer this to a bowl because we want it to cool quickly and getting it out of the hot pan is the first thing to do for that.

So while the mushrooms cool down, we will get ready to roll the dough.

♪ ♪ Okay, time to roll out our fabulous homemade dough.

This is actually my favorite part.

We refrigerated it for an hour, but now it's been sitting out for about ten minutes because you want it to be a little bit pliable.

- Right.

- So we need a little bit of flour on the table.

I like to... urge this out by a little pounding to begin with.

This also softens the dough it gets the butter soft without getting it warm.

All right, now we're ready to start rolling.

I prefer the straight pins.

You want to use longer strokes rather than a bunch of short strokes, going from end to end.

- I mean, this dough really rolls out nicely without pulling back.

- It's a beautiful dough.

Yes, I agree.

- Well that, the reason is the butter is well cut into the flour.

- Yes.

- And in an American pastry dough, the butter's not cut in as much, which is much harder to deal with.

Okay, so you want a circle, obviously.

If you get these odd little rivulets like that, just roll over them.

Not, don't roll them out, roll over them... horizontally.

And that will widen them.

So you want a 14-inch circle about an eighth-of-an-inch thick.

So what we're going to do is the folding method-- quarters and a little... one more.

This is a good indicator of where to place it because if we fold the dough in half, you want to put this right in the middle.

And then just sort of unroll it from there.

And then the trick is lift it and fold, don't want to push it in like that and stretch it, you just want to lift it up and let it fall down in there and let the excess hang over the edge.

Getting into that corner is really important at this stage.

There we go All right, then folded over like that.

You've got excess dough.

Easy way to get rid of it is to just roll over the rolling pin.

I remember the first time I learned that trick.

I thought it was the coolest thing in the world.

- Oh it is... it's very satisfying.

- Right, and then we'll just press gently around the edges.

All right, so this needs to go in the fridge another hour because we want to let that gluten relax that we just developed.

You can do this up to a day ahead even.

♪ ♪ We'll be baking this on a preheated oven steel, similar to what you might make pizza on, because that's the way the bottom crust gets really beautifully browned.

So the oven has been preheating for a full hour at 450.

Remember those onions we made earlier?

And the mushrooms?

To that, we're going to add some chopped tarragon and Canadian bacon.

You could certainly use American-style bacon, pancetta, or you could skip the meat altogether and add a little more vegetable.

We're going to put this into the bottom of the pan first, - Leaving no room for anything else.

- (laughs) It seems like it.

Would you spread even?

And, of course, the cheese is what's next.

Now we're using gruyère, which is the classic cheese you would use in a quiche, and it's been grated.

And then we're gonna pour the custard over very slowly until it gets almost to the very top.

- Okay.

- And... - Oh, and now I get to do this?

- Yes, you shall see.

- Now go slow at first, 'cause you want to give the custard time to... - You're already worried about how I'm going to do this.

- It's not like you haven't done it before.

It's a lot of filling in there and just, the custard needs time to get down, all the way down to the bottom.

Almost to the top, gonna go into our 450 degree oven, slide it right on top of the baking steel.

Soon as you've closed the oven door, turn the temperature down to 350, and then this will bake for 45 to 55 minutes until it's golden brown on top, and just still jiggly in the center.

♪ ♪ - Looking good - It does.

- Yeah, looking very good.

- One more little note before we slice this and taste it, because the custard is so delicate when it comes out of the oven, it's still a little jiggly.

It needs to cool and continue cooking for at least two hours before you slice it.

If you slice it while it's too hot, it'll... - Just fall apart.

- Yeah, yeah it's worth the wait.

- Well, now we don't have to wait anymore.

- That's right.

The crust is "like butter" to cut through.

So here at Milk Street, this is a first, we're going to actually have some wine because it's a quiche and, uh... - (laughs) - And it reminds me of 1967.

- Ooh.

- Which was a very good year.

And now for the main event.

- This is getting better.

Mm... words cannot express how good this is.

It's rich but it's, it is light in texture.

The mushrooms and the onions... - The creaminess, though, that's the crème fraîche in that custard that makes this incredibly silky.

- You know, it's so great to go back to some of those foods of your childhood, especially when you realize how good they are.

We updated just a little bit, but there are recipes that we should not forget, right?

- Right.

- You don't want to get rid of the past.

So if you love quiche this is a mile high quiche from Le Pichet Restaurant in Seattle, and we heartily recommend it, especially with a glass of wine.

- That's right.

- Bon appétit.

- Merci.

(chuckles) ♪ ♪ - Now it's time to do an old-fashioned American dessert, a buckle-- this is a cranberry and candied ginger buckle.

And it's an old-fashioned dessert, as I said, and we got the idea for this dessert from a baker in Portland, Oregon.

Her name is Julie Richardson.

She and her husband co-own Baker and Spice.

Now she likes old-fashioned recipes like I do, and she thought about the buckle, and what is a buckle?

It's a rich cake with fruit, usually blueberries, and a streusel topping.

It's called the buckle because the top of the cake buckles as it bakes and cools.

The blueberries sort of draw down the batter, make it a little heavy.

So she wanted to solve that problem.

And she also wanted to add some fresh flavors to it and some richness.

So what she decided to do was, instead of blueberries, to use cranberries.

Cranberries, obviously, are tarter, brighter, but they have less water in them, and, therefore, will weigh down the batter a little bit less.

And also she added some candied ginger to the mix and also sour cream.

So we're taking her cue here to redo an old-fashioned American favorite.

In the food processor we're starting with three cups of all-purpose flour, a cup of sugar, we have a teaspoon of cinnamon, and a little bit of salt in there as well.

We're just gonna mix that together for a few pulses.

Now we have 12 tablespoons of chilled butter cut up in small pieces and that goes on.

When you do this, you're coating the flour with fat, it's sometimes referred to as reverse creaming.

You really want a pulse this 15 or 20 times.

You really want to cut the butter into the flour.

(processor pulsing) When you coat flour with fat, you don't develop as much gluten.

There's less interaction with liquid in the recipe, which means you get a softer, more tender cake.

I've only done it a few times, let me just show you why it's not ready.

The flour is still flour-y.

It's gonna turn a little bit yellow, and it's going to get a little more like cornmeal, almost like crumbs, so it's not gonna have that powdery look.

That was seven pulses.

Okay, now you can see... it's darker, it's a little bit more yellow because the butter's cut in, and it's not as powdery.

It actually will hold together a little bit, so, 20 pulses.

And we're going to put that into a bowl.

But we're gonna put this back.

Very often when you do a cake with a streusel, you can use some of the dry ingredients from the cake as a base for the streusel.

So we're going to take a cup of the flour mixture and put that back in the food processor.

Now we want to make the streusel topping-- three tablespoons of brown sugar.

Obviously, you need sugar in a streusel, for it holds together.

Some sliced almonds, and two tablespoons of the cold butter.

And we're gonna pulse that the same number of times.

This should turn into a texture a little bit like... sort of wet sand.

So it'll clump together in your fingers.

♪ ♪ Now we want to finish up the batter.

So we have the dry ingredients here with the butter.

We have three eggs, a cup of sour cream... and a tablespoon of vanilla.

And that goes into this bowl, so we'll fold that together.

So now we add the cranberries, it's a 12-ounce bag.

Either fresh cranberries or frozen.

If they're frozen, you'll want to thaw them.

And the reason is if they're frozen, they'll get into this thick batter and almost seize the batter, so it's very hard to work with.

And half a cup of candied ginger that's been chopped.

♪ ♪ So now, into a nine by 13 pan.

We've sprayed this with nonstick spray, and we floured it and then just tapped out the excess.

And now the streusel goes on.

So I'm just going to take the streusel and turn it into a little half-inch clumps, so you get a nice texture on the top when it's baked.

The oven's at 375, 40 to 45 minutes, until the center springs back and is cooked.

Last thing, a little powdered sugar on top.

It's a rich cake, but it rose very nicely, and the fruit did not weigh down the buckle, which is nice.

And then, of course, the stressful topping's a little uneven, which makes it nice and rustic.

So a huge thank you to Julie Richardson at Baker and Spice in Portland, Oregon.

A huge remake makeover of a blueberry buckle.

This is a cranberry and candied ginger buckle.

♪ ♪ You know, I didn't think I needed another soufflé recipe until we came across this one.

This is from Vivian Howard from Deep Run, North Carolina.

You may know her, she's a famous cookbook author also has her own TV shows.

A little bit about Vivian, she grew up in Deep Run, which she said was less of a town than a fire district, it's that rural.

But she's a fabulous cook and this corn, fresh corn soufflé, may be the number one recipe in the last year here at Milk Street.

I mean, I've had this 15 times because they had to keep making it, it was so good.

So we're going to make it for you now.

And I think this will become part of your Saturday night entertaining repertoire.

- Yeah, I agree.

And the other thing that's so great about this recipe because I think a lot of people get really intimidated when they hear soufflé, and they're really worried about it collapsing and, you know, all of these things going wrong, but because of the natural starch in the corn, it actually does help fortify the soufflé.

Here we have two cups of corn.

You need about three ears of corn to get two cups, - Oh, so you're not using frozen corn, this is the real deal?

Fresh corn?

- That is preferred.

if you can't get fresh corn, if it's out of season, you can use frozen corn in this recipe.

But fresh corn is best.

We have a quarter-teaspoon salt and a cup of heavy cream.

And then we're just going to blend this for about ten to 15 seconds.

(blender whirring) And that's it.

And in this large saucepan, I have a half a cup of all-purpose flour and a quarter-cup of sugar that I've whisked in.

And we're going to go ahead and add this.

- So this is a little bit like making a béchamel as a base for a soufflé?

Is that what's going on?

- Exactly, yeah, which is a very, very traditional technique.

So I'm just gonna whisk that in first.

And you'll see as soon as we turn on the heat, it will thicken.

And you want to be sure to stir it the whole time.

And it's going to come to a boil and get very, very thick, and this is going to take between five and seven minutes.

Okay, Chris, this looks great.

You can see how much it's thickened up.

I'm going to go ahead and just turn off the heat here.

And then we're going to start mixing in our butter.

We have eight tablespoons of butter here.

I'm going to add a couple tablespoons at a time.

And the reason we add it bit by bit, it just helps it incorporate a little bit easier.

Okay, this is great, all the butter is melted.

You don't need to worry if there's a little bit of melted butter left in there 'cause it's all going to come together once we add our egg yolks.

All right, I'm going to transfer this to our mixing bowl.

- Don't you think, like, Julia Child should be here now?

Cream, butter... - I'm channeling her right now.

- Flour, eggs... - I know, yup.

- I mean all the things she dearly loved.

So now while I'm adding the rest of the ingredients, if you wouldn't mind, we have a teaspoon of lemon zest and a couple tablespoons of sugar.

If you wouldn't mind mixing that together, that's going to be our topping.

And while you're doing that I'm going to go ahead and add two egg yolks and then another three teaspoons of lemon zest and two teaspoons of vanilla extract.

And you want to make sure that this mixture has cooled down enough after you added the butter.

And if it's still a little bit warm, you want to make sure to let it sit for about five minutes, just to come to room temperature.

And you can see that as soon as I add the yolks, it really does kind of all come together.

Our sugar is done.

And now the fun part, we get to whip our egg whites, which I know you love to do, and we have four egg whites.

- So before I do it, there's camp A and Camp B.

Camp A is whip the egg whites slowly for 30 seconds to break them up, and then fast, or do you just... - I just... - ...put the pedal to the metal?

- I just go, go for it.

- Me too, I'm with you.

All right, good.

- Yeah.

(mixer whirring) And we're gonna add a quarter-cup of sugar.

(mixer stops whirring) - Now do you finish yours by hand?

- I guess it depends on the mixer, but... you can... this is your job.

(mixer whirring) - Oh, I can't get any directions through you?

- (laughs) - I like to finish it by hand.

(mixer stops whirring) Because that last little bit is kind of critical, right?

I don't like mine really stiff when doing this, right?

- Right, you want to get soft peak, but you don't want to overdo it, I like to think of whipping whites, like stretching a rubber band.

You'll want to stretch it at full capacity because you wanna have it have a little bit more stretch in the oven.

- Okay.

- All right.

- So we're just going to add about a quarter of the whites to start with because you can see what we have here in the bowl, our base, is pretty thick.

So before we add all the whites, we just want to lighten it a little bit.

And I'm just folding in the whites.

And if you beat the whites too much, it's very hard to incorporate them into the batter.

- They look like, almost, like Styrofoam, and I'm just gently scraping the remaining whites on top.

And again, I'm trying to be as gentle as possible, to sort of retain the air that you've whipped in there.

- Mm.

- Yeah.

And then, you know, you don't want to go crazy at this point.

You want to just do it till you see no more, you know, white streaks of egg whites.

Okay now, this looks great, and we're ready to transfer it into our ramekins.

They've been generously buttered and then dusted with sugar.

And I like to use a handy ice cream scoop to portion.

But you can also use just a measuring cup or, you know, a nice big spoon.

- Is that a Paul Bunyan ice cream scoop?

- (laughs) Yeah, right?

- That's pretty big.

- These are really nice and full.

One more thing that we're going to do before we top with our lemon sugar topping, I'm going to run my thumb around the edge here and just wipe away the butter and the sugar and make a little divot.

This is a really neat trick, Chris, and what this does is ensures that the soufflés are gonna rise nice and evenly up the sides.

It's a little messy, but it's worth it.

And now we're just gonna sprinkle this lovely lemon sugar on top.

At this point, you can pop these in the refrigerator for up to two hours, so if you were making these for a dinner party and you were kind of a little, you know, you probably don't get stressed, but I get a little stressed when I'm doing a lot of other things.

You can make these ahead of time and have them in the fridge.

Or alternatively, if it was just two of you, and you didn't want to eat all six at once, you can wrap them in plastic and then foil and then freeze them for up to a week and you can bake them right from frozen.

And you just need to increase the baking time by about five minutes.

- Well, I wouldn't eat more than one, but I would want to eat more than one.

- You would want to, right?

- Because these are so good.

All right, and that's basically it.

And now these are ready to go into a fairly hot, a 400-degree oven on the middle rack, and they're going to bake for about 20 minutes.

♪ ♪ Okay, Chris, these look amazing.

- Wow!

- I know this is so exciting, aren't they beautiful?

And you can see they're nicely browned on top, and they do just jiggle a little bit still, and they're perfectly done.

- There's nothing worse than an overcooked soufflé where the center is all dry.

- That's very true... - You want the center to be, kind of, almost liquid.

- A little bit, a little bit gooey, and it does continue to cook with the residual heat as well.

Great, now I'm just going to give these a quick dusting of confectioner's sugar.

I do need to warn you, though, these are gonna be hot.

- Mm... - And we are ready dig in.

- I learned a long time ago that the only thing that matters when you're cooking for other people is dessert's the last thing they eat.

That's what they remember the most.

But serve this for dessert... - Right.

- And you're a hero, I mean... - (laughs) - You know.

Ooh.

- Yeah, this looks great.

This is also really great with, like, summer berries.

- Oh!

That wasn't 'cause it was hot, that was 'cause it was so good.

- Really?

- This is so good.

- The corn flavor really, really comes through.

And you can see they're actually holding up really, really well.

- I used to make a lot of soufflés back in the '70s when everyone was making soufflés.

Grand Marnier soufflé, chocolate soufflé, all that stuff, this is, yeah, this is up here.

- Yeah, it is, it's amazing.

- Mm... it's almost impossible to describe because you think, you say soufflé, and you think of a thing.

But this is not it, it's a cross really, between, we call it a pudding.

It's a cross between a pudding and a soufflé, which is just absolutely perfect.

- Exactly.

I also think it's one of these desserts that tastes so much better than it sounds.

So you really have to make it and try it because it's worth it.

- Well, there are four more.

- (laughs) - If I'm not finished with one, satisfied with one, I can have more.

- Mm-hmm.

- So a huge thank you from Milk Street to Vivian Howard.

If you guys cook this well in Deep Run, North Carolina, we're moving there tonight, I think, probably.

- (chuckles) - So sweet corn pudding is just a fabulous recipe.

A basic soufflé, except it uses sweet corn, and everything else is pretty much standard, except it comes out with a little bit of pudding texture and a little bit of soufflé.

You can get this recipe and all the recipes from this season of Milk Street at MilkStreetTV.com.

All episodes and recipes from this season of Milk Street Television are available for free at our website, MilkStreetTV.com.

Please access our content, including our step-by-step recipe videos, from your smartphone, your tablet, or your computer.

- The new Milk Street cookbook is now available and includes every recipe from our TV show.

From authentic lasagna Bolognese and roasted cauliflower with tahini and lemon, to Indian butter chicken and flourless French chocolate cake, the Milk Street cookbook offers bolder, fresher, simpler recipes.

Order your copy of the Milk Street cookbook for $27, 40% less than the cover price, and receive a Milk Street tote with your order at no additional charge.

Call 855-MILK-177, or order online.

- Funding for this series was provided by the following.

- For 25 years, Consumer Cellular has been offering no-contract wireless plans designed to help people do more of what they like.

Our U.S.-based customer service team can help find a plan that fits you.

To learn more, visit ConsumerCellular.tv.

♪ ♪ - Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to be the first to welcome you to Tel Aviv... - Welcome to Oaxaca's airport.

- Welcome to Beirut.

♪ ♪ (man speaking Hebrew) - (speaking world language) - Bonjour, je m'appelle Chris.

- We call it supa kanja.

It's the word for gumbo.

♪ ♪ - Christopher, you have to make the authentic, original cotoletta alla Bolognese for me.

♪ ♪ - So this is the Eduardo García blender.

- This is the no electricity.

♪ ♪ - Next is dessert.

- That is really good.

♪ ♪ - I notice when you cook sometimes, you add a little bit of something, and then you just put the whole bowl in.

- I like to be generous with my food.

Generosity is important in cooking.

- That's true.

♪ ♪ - Can start building bridges, and food is definitely a perfect common ground.

♪ ♪ - This is a generational thing.

It's... it's something that you inherit.

♪ ♪ - Yeah, that was great.

(woman speaking Mandarin) - What was this for?

What did she say?

- You get one more chance.

- Salute.

- How is it?

He's speechless.

- I'm speechless.

That's so good.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪