Skip to main content
Baking

Corn Beef Souffle

A baked soufflé made with corned beef, butter, flour, milk, lemon juice, celery extract, cayenne pepper, salt, onion, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Corn Beef 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. Melt butter in a pan.

  2. Whisk in flour until smooth.

  3. Gradually add milk, stirring constantly until thickened.

  4. Stir in lemon juice, celery extract, cayenne pepper, salt, and grated onion.

  5. Allow sauce to cool slightly.

Assemble and bake

  1. Mix in beaten yolks and chopped corn beef.

  2. Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites gently.

  3. Pour mixture into a buttered pudding dish, filling about two-thirds full.

  4. Bake in preheated oven at 350°F (175°C) for 25 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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Lemon + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Corn + celerytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together920 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped whites trap air and lift the mixture, while yolks enrich and set the custard.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the soufflé together.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving the soufflé a moist, tender body.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and, with the flour, forms the roux that thickens the base.
Cold cooked corn beef
Provides the main savoury flavour and substance of the soufflé.

The step that matters

Fold in stiffly beaten egg whites gently. Overmixing knocks air out of the whites, so the soufflé rises less and turns dense. Folding keeps the foam intact for lift in the oven.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (corn, beef, butter, flour, milk, celery, pepper):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Limefits about as well
  3. Coconutfits about as well
  4. Avocadofits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against corn, beef, butter, flour, milk, celery, pepper. 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.

You might also like

Cornmeal Griddle CakesCornmeal Griddle Cakes24 recipesCorn Breakfast CakesCorn Breakfast Cakes20 recipesDelicate CakeDelicate Cake246 recipesBoiled FrostingBoiled Frosting69 recipes