Why it works: Milk and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 19,053 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓
Simple Souffle
Ingredients
Directions
Make the base
Smooth the wheatmeal in part of the milk.
Heat the remaining milk with sugar and lemon rind or vanilla until boiling.
Stir the smoothed wheatmeal into the boiling milk and cook gently for 5 to 8 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat and let cool.
Assemble and bake
Beat the egg yolks and mix them into the cooled mixture (remove the lemon rind or vanilla).
Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the mixture.
Spread a layer of jam in a pie dish and pour the mixture over the jam.
Bake the soufflé until risen and brown.
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.
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Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together88,785 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together77,875 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together44,316 recipes
Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).
Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Whites beaten to stiff peaks trap air, which lifts the soufflé as it bakes.
- Wheatmeal
- Thickens the milk into a custard-like base that holds the egg structure.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base that the thickened mixture and eggs set within.
The step that matters
Folding in the egg whites. Stirring beaten whites in vigorously knocks out the air that makes the soufflé rise. Fold gently with a large spoon so the mixture stays light.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, egg, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits about as well
- Raisinfits about as well
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, sugar. 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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