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Lobster Souffle

A baked lobster soufflé made with butter, flour, milk or stock, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Lobster Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the flour, stirring until smooth.

  3. Gradually add the milk or stock, cooking until thickened.

  4. Stir in the lobster meat, salt, cayenne, onion juice, parsley, and lemon juice.

  5. Remove from heat and let cool slightly.

Bake and serve

  1. Beat the eggs and fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour into a greased baking dish and bake for 20-30 minutes until the center is firm.

  3. Serve immediately.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

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

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 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
Beaten eggs add structure and lift as they set in the oven.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a stable base that holds the soufflé.
Milk or lobster/fish stock
Forms the liquid base that the flour thickens into a smooth sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness to the roux that starts the base.
Lobster meat
Provides the main seafood flavor and tender texture in the soufflé.

The step that matters

Fold the eggs into the base. Folding gently keeps the air beaten into the eggs, which lifts the soufflé in the oven. Stirring hard deflates the mixture and leaves it dense.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, lobster, meat, flour, milk, parsley, lemon):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lobster, meat, flour, milk, parsley, lemon. 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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