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Egg Souffle

A light, airy dish made by beating eggs, cooking them in butter, baking briefly, and folding before serving.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Egg 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 eggs

  1. Separate the egg whites and yolks, then beat them together until combined.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and Worcestershire sauce to the egg mixture.

Cook

  1. Heat a pan on the stove and add the butter. Wait until it is hot and hissing but not browned.

  2. Pour the egg mixture into the hot pan. Pull the pan back and let it sit until the eggs puff and stiffen, lifting from the bottom with a knife to prevent scorching.

  3. Transfer the pan to a 400°F (200°C) oven for 1 minute to form a crust.

Serve

  1. Fold the souffle and serve immediately on a dish garnished with parsley.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 trap air to give the soufflé its light, puffed structure, while yolks add richness and set as it cooks.
Butter
Fat in the hot pan starts the egg mixture cooking from below and helps prevent sticking.

The step that matters

Pour the egg mixture into the hot pan and let it set without stirring. The pan must be hot enough that the eggs begin setting on contact, which lets the base puff and stiffen. Lifting the base with a knife helps prevent scorching while the bottom sets.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Parsleythe original
  2. Tarragonfits about as well
  3. Capersfits about as well
  4. Nutmegfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, pepper, sauce, 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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