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Potato Souffle

A baked dish of mashed potatoes, eggs, butter, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

Make the mixture

  1. Combine mashed potatoes, salt, white pepper, and melted butter in a bowl, then beat the mixture until light.

  2. Add the beaten egg yolks and cream, mixing well.

  3. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased baking dish, shaping it into a rough mound.

  2. Bake in the preheated oven until golden brown.

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. Potato + white peppertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together157 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the mixture, while whipped whites lighten it and help it rise.
Mashed potatoes
Provide the bulk and body of the soufflé base.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour while keeping the mixture tender.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, giving a softer, smoother texture.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Egg whites hold air bubbles that make the soufflé rise. Stirring or deflating them vigorously knocks out that air, so the soufflé bakes up flat and dense instead of light.

Swap the white pepper

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, butter, egg, cream. 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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