Skip to main content
Main

Lobster Soufflee

A steamed lobster soufflé made with a butter‑flour sauce, milk, anchovy sauce, vinegar, Worcestershire sauce, egg yolks, and beaten egg whites.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Anchovy and sauce 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 Soufflee

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 3 ounces of butter with the flour over medium heat, stirring until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the milk, stirring until it boils and thickens.

  3. Set aside half of the sauce in a basin.

Add the lobster and eggs

  1. Add lobster meat cut into small pieces and coral pounded with ½ ounce of butter to the remaining sauce.

  2. Strain the mixture.

  3. Mix in the anchovy sauce, vinegar, pepper, and salt.

  4. Stir in the egg yolks.

  5. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Mold and steam

  1. Butter a plain tin mold.

  2. Tie a band of buttered paper around the mold.

  3. Pour in the mixture, filling it only halfway.

  4. Steam for 1 hour and 15 minutes.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 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. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and butter 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

Flour
Forms with melted butter a roux that thickens the milk into a smooth sauce.
Egg yolks
Enrich the sauce and add richness and body to the soufflé base.
Egg whites
Beaten and folded in, they trap air and make the soufflé rise and turn light.
Lobster
Provides the main flavour and tender pieces of meat throughout the soufflé.

The step that matters

Gently fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air trapped in the whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé heavy and stops it rising well.

“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.

You might also like

Lobster SauceLobster Sauce174 recipesLobster CroquettesLobster Croquettes99 recipesLobster BallsLobster Balls7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipes