Swiss Potato and Cheese Soufflé: Kartoffel und Käse Auflauf

German "Auflauf" means "casserole," in general, but it can also mean the more specific "soufflé," a type of casserole; and indeed, the dish uses egg whites to be "puffed up." It is often accompanied by watercress or garden cress. There are variations to the general recipe in Germany and Austria, where the potatoes aren't usually mashed, but rather sliced or diced, and other ingredients are often layered in as another type of casserole.

Ingredients:

2 pounds potatoes, peeled and chopped, then cooked in salted water
4 tablespoons flour
4 egg yolks
1 cup Gruyère, shredded
1 cup Pecorino Romano, grated or shredded (the Swiss often use "Sbrinz"*)
1/2 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups milk
4 egg whites, whipped to peaks
2 tablespoons butter
oil or butter for the casserole/baking dish

Simmer the potatoes until tender. Drain the potatoes and mash with a potato masher or use a hand mixer. In a bowl, mix together the egg yolks, flour, cheeses, nutmeg, salt, milk. When mixed, add the potatoes to the mixture and mix everything together, then fold in the egg whites. Butter or oil a casserole or baking dish, then add the potato mixture and smooth it out. Flake the 2 tablespoons of butter and top the casserole with the butter flakes. Bake at 325 F for 70 to 90 minutes, until set in the middle.

* "Sbrinz" is a hard cheese produced in central Switzerland from cow's milk. It is frequently used in place of Parmesan or Pecorino Romano by the Swiss, either of which can usually be more easily found in stores outside of Switzerland than Sbrinz. I use Pecorino. 

 

Swiss Potato and Cheese Soufflé with watercress ...

WORD HISTORY:

Wipe-This word is closely related to "whip," a word derived from the same Germanic source as "wipe," but seemingly borrowed by English from Dutch and Low German, and it is more distantly related to "waive" (to forgo legal claim or right to something), a word borrowed from French, which had it from Germanic, and to "vibrate," a Latin word borrowed by English from that language. "Wipe" goes back to Indo European "weip/weyp," which had the notion "to turn, to wind (long 'i'), to rotate, to shake." This gave Old Germanic "wipjan(an)," meaning "to move back and forth quickly," which gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "wipian" meaning "to clean by rubbing with a back and forth or rotating motion." This then became "wipen," before the modern form. "Wipe" and "whip" are so closely related, it can be difficult to separate some other Germanic forms, but here are some relatives in some other Germanic languages: German has "wippen" (to move up and down; thus also, "bob, seesaw"), which was borrowed from Low German in the 1500s, but earlier, German had "wifan,"^ then "wifen," which meant "to move back and forth," but then also, "to rotate, to swing," Low German has "wippen," meaning "to move up and down," Dutch has "wippen" with the same meanings as German, except it also means "whip." 

^ A common difference between Low German, English, Frisian and Dutch versus German has been the change of "p" in those first languages to an "f" or "pf" in German; thus, English has "pipe," but German has "Pfeife," which shows both changes in one word.