Skip to main content
Main

Potato Souffle

A baked potato dish folded with beaten egg whites for a light, airy texture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potato 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 base

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then pass them through a sieve.

  2. Scald 1-2 cups of milk and melt 1 tablespoon of butter in it.

  3. Add the milk mixture to the potatoes with a little salt and pepper, and beat until creamy.

  4. Add the egg yolks one at a time, beating well after each addition.

Whip and bake

  1. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with a little salt until stiff peaks form.

  2. Gently fold the egg whites into the potato mixture, stirring as little as possible.

  3. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish, leaving room for it to rise.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes and serve immediately in the same dish.

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Potato + milktop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,611 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,z)-2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, melon).

  4. Potato + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

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

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Provide the bulk and soft, starchy body of the soufflé.
Milk
Adds moisture and loosens the potato so it beats smooth.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the base and greases the dish.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the soufflé as it bakes.
Egg whites
Whipped to stiff peaks, they trap air so the soufflé rises.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whipped whites hold the air that makes a soufflé rise. Stirring them in hard knocks out that air, so the soufflé bakes flat and dense instead of light.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

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

More potato souffle recipes

Sweet 3 See all 35 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipesPotato ChipsPotato Chips53 recipesSweet Potato CroquettesSweet Potato Croquettes53 recipes