Soufflé de Laitues

Soufflé de Laitues (lettuce soufflé) teaches the hardest and most useful truth about any vegetable soufflé: the vegetable must be dry before the whites ever meet it. Lettuce holds more water than it admits. Drive that water off, then fold lightly, and the Soufflé de Laitues rises around fine anchovy lattices with a tender green centre and a bronzed dome.

The source entry sends the cook directly to Soufflé aux Épinards (No. 2139), because a professional kitchen assumed that composition already stood ready, along with enough hands to blanch, squeeze, fold, and layer it at once. There is no work here for a saucier, no stockpot to keep on the fire, and no honest use for a salamander. The home equivalent is one home-scale batch of the linked composition, lettuce replacing spinach, a straight-sided 1.5-quart dish, and a thoroughly preheated oven. Brigade quantities and spare hands are scaffolding, so those go. The reference ratio, light fold, and anchovy lattices are the dish, so they stay. One cook, one stove, one evening.

Squeeze the blanched lettuce until the towel stays nearly dry, then dry it once more in the pan if it weeps. Air lost during the final fold doesn't come back, so stop while a few faint traces of white remain. Dry the lettuce first, then protect the fold. That is the whole ascent.