Skip to main content
Main

Spinach Souffle

A baked spinach custard made with milk, butter, flour, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Spinach Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Make a cream sauce by melting the butter in a saucepan, then whisk in the flour and gradually add the scalded milk.

  2. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.

  3. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  4. Fold in the cooked spinach and then gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered serving dish and place it in a pan of hot water.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 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. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth sauce that gives the soufflé its body.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce, carrying the flour and eggs.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and set the base, while whites trap air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Butter
Enriches the sauce with fat and flavor and helps form the roux with the flour.
Spinach
Adds its earthy flavor and moisture to the sauce base.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Stiffly beaten whites hold trapped air that makes the soufflé rise. Vigorous stirring deflates that foam, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

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

You might also like

Spinach SoupSpinach Soup50 recipesCream of SpinachCream of Spinach29 recipesCreamed Spinach SoupCreamed Spinach Soup19 recipesSpinach and EggsSpinach and Eggs8 recipes