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Potato Souffle

A baked dish of mashed potatoes folded with beaten eggs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Potato 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.

Prepare

  1. Stir the broken butter and salt into the hot mashed potatoes.

  2. Keep the potatoes covered in a warm place.

  3. Warm the cream or rich milk in a separate container.

  4. Beat the egg whites and yolks separately.

Make the souffle and bake

  1. Combine the egg yolks with the potato mixture, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a large, well-buttered baking dish.

  3. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes or until nicely browned.

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 + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  3. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  4. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Cream + eggtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Cream and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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, beaten separately and folded in, lift the mixture and set it into a light, airy structure.
Mashed potatoes
Form the bulk of the souffle and give it a soft, tender body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a softer texture to the potatoes.
Cream or rich milk
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the potato base smooth and tender.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air from beating. Folding gently keeps that air in the mixture; stirring or deflating it causes a dense result that rises less in the oven.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Chivefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, 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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