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Spinach Souffle

A baked spinach and cheese souffle made with butter, flour, cream, eggs, and breadcrumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. 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. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. In a saucepan, make a sauce with butter, flour, and cream.

  3. Add salt, white pepper, and paprika, then stir in the spinach.

  4. Press the spinach dry and pass it through a sieve.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix in the beaten egg yolks and cheese, then fold in the beaten egg whites.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pudding dish.

  3. Combine bread crumbs and grated cheese with melted butter, and spread on top.

  4. Bake for 25 minutes or until golden brown.

  5. Serve warm.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Butter + cream cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,747 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Flour + spinachtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  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 beaten and folded in give the soufflé its light, risen structure.
Egg yolks
Yolks enrich the base and help it set into a custard-like texture when baked.
Flour
Flour thickens the butter and cream into a sauce that holds the soufflé together.
Butter
Butter forms the roux with flour and adds richness to the sauce and crumb topping.
Cream cheese
Cream cheese adds fat and a rich, tender texture to the base.
Spinach
Spinach provides the main flavor and, once pressed dry, adds body without excess moisture.

The step that matters

Press the spinach dry and sieve it. Excess water from the spinach thins the sauce and weakens the set, so the soufflé may fall or turn soggy. Removing water keeps the base thick enough to support the folded egg whites.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, cream, spinach, egg, cream cheese, bread. 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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