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Tomato Souffle

A baked tomato and egg custard with a light, airy texture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Tomato 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. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  2. Stir in the flour.

  3. Gradually add the milk.

  4. Add the seasonings, grated cheese, and tomato pulp.

  5. Mix in the egg yolks.

Prepare the dish

  1. Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour into a buttered baking dish.

  3. Place it in a larger dish filled with hot water.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for about 30 minutes.

  2. 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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  3. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  4. Cheese + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

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

Eggs
Egg whites trap air that lifts the soufflé, while yolks enrich the base and help it set.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk base so it can hold the lifted structure.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the base and helps it cook smoothly with the flour.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that gives the soufflé its moisture and creamy texture.
Tomato pulp
Provides the main tomato flavour and moisture in the base.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour and a little richness to the base.

The step that matters

Fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air bubbles that make the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps those bubbles intact, while stirring or beating them further would deflate the mixture and it would bake flat and dense.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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

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