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Fish Eoe Souffles

A light souffle made from fresh herring roe, butter, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fish Eoe Souffles

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the base

  1. Blanch and pound the roes of fresh herrings.

  2. Flavour with salt, pepper, pounded mace, and nutmeg.

  3. Add ½ ounce of butter and 2 beaten egg yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Stir in 6 beaten egg whites until stiff.

  2. Bake in ramekin cups at 400°F (200°C) for 5 minutes.

  3. Serve immediately.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Roe + eggtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together243 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Roe + buttertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together442 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Herring roes
Provide the main body and rich, savoury flavour of the soufflé.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff foam, they trap air and let the soufflé rise and set.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture while keeping it tender.
Butter
Adds fat for a smoother texture and a rounder, richer flavour.

The step that matters

Stir in the stiff egg whites. Folding in whites gently keeps the air bubbles intact. Overmixing deflates them, so the soufflé will not rise well in the oven.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (roe, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against roe, pepper, nutmeg, butter, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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