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Spinach Souffle

A baked spinach dish mixed with eggs, milk, pepper, salt, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Spinach and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,400 recipes. Both carry nonanal, which smells fat, citrus. The science ↓

Spinach 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 the spinach

  1. Boil the spinach thoroughly.

  2. Pass the spinach through a sieve.

Make the mixture

  1. Add the beaten eggs and milk to the spinach.

  2. Season with pepper and salt, and mix thoroughly.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into well-buttered souffle dishes.

  2. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 10 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. Spinach + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Beaten eggs provide structure as they set, lifting and holding the souffle together.
Spinach
Provides the main body and flavour, with its moisture shaping the texture of the mixture.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, loosening the mixture so it bakes into a tender custard-like crumb.
Butter
Greases the dishes so the souffle releases cleanly and browns lightly at the edges.

The step that matters

Pass the spinach through a sieve. Spinach holds a lot of water and fibre; if it is not pressed and strained well, extra liquid thins the mixture and can make the souffle collapse or turn watery.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, pepper, butter. 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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