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Lobster Souflee

A steamed lobster soufflé made with a white sauce, egg yolks, and egg whites, served with anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Souflee

Ingredients

Directions

Make the white sauce

  1. Make a white sauce by melting the butter, adding the flour, and gradually whisking in the milk; cook until thick.

Mix and cook

  1. Combine half of the white sauce with the finely chopped lobster, egg yolks, and seasonings.

  2. Gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

  3. Pour the mixture into a well-greased tin lined with paper and steam for one hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with anchovy sauce made from the remaining white sauce, additional milk, and anchovy essence.

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. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + anchovytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Lobster + saucetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,095 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  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 trapped by folding give the soufflé its lift, while yolks add richness and set the custard.
Butter
Fat that enriches the white sauce and adds a smooth, rich flavour.
Flour
Thickens the milk with the butter into a white sauce that gives the soufflé body.
Milk
Liquid that, with the flour and butter, forms the white sauce base.
Lobster
Main flavour and protein, giving the soufflé its seafood taste and body.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold the air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring vigorously deflates the mixture and leaves it dense.

“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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