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Cheese Souffle

A baked cheese soufflé made with milk, flour, eggs, cheese, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese Souffle

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.

Make the base

  1. Mix flour with a part of the milk to form a smooth paste.

  2. Add the remaining milk and stir over heat until thickened.

  3. Set aside to cool.

Add the flavourings and cheese

  1. In a bowl, mix egg yolks, salt, dry mustard, red pepper, onion juice, and grated cheese.

  2. Stir this mixture into the cooled batter.

Fold, bake and serve

  1. Fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Bake in ramekins at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes and 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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,805 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Milk
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth sauce.
Flour
Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the soufflé together.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and add richness and structure as they set in the oven.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they trap air that makes the soufflé rise and become light.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and fat, and helps give the soufflé its body.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whites. Stirring or deflating the mixture removes that air, so the soufflé rises less and turns dense.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, mustard, pepper, cheese):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, mustard, pepper, cheese. 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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