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Potato Souffle

A baked dish of mashed potatoes folded with beaten egg and nut cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 17% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,481 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-one, which smells mushroom, metallic. The science ↓

Potato Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA quick oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a quick oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the base

  1. Beat the yolk of the egg until light.

  2. Mix the yolk with the mashed potatoes, nut cream, and salt.

  3. Beat until very smooth and light.

Fold and bake

  1. Whip the egg white to a stiff, dry froth and carefully fold it into the potato mixture.

  2. Transfer to a greased baking dish and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until browned.

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. Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Mashed potatoes
Provides the main body and bulk, giving the soufflé its base structure and soft texture.
Egg
The yolk enriches and binds the base, while the whipped white traps air that lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
Nut cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the mixture richer and smoother.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg white. The whipped white holds the air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps those bubbles intact, because stirring or deflating the froth leads to a dense, flat result.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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