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Tomato Souffle

A baked tomato and macaroni souffle with cheese, mustard, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Tomato 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.

Make the mixture

  1. In a saucepan, combine the tomato pulp, butter, grated cheese, boiled macaroni, stale bread crumbs, and mustard.

  2. Stir over medium heat until the mixture boils, then let it cool.

  3. Once cooled, mix in the egg yolks, followed by the egg whites, and season with salt and pepper.

Bake

  1. Dust the top with additional cheese.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a buttered baking dish and bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until set.

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. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,130 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Whipped or folded in, they trap air and lift the mixture as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Add richness and help bind the mixture as it sets.
Stale bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the mixture body and structure.
Grated cheese
Adds savoury flavour, fat, and browning on the top.
Tomato pulp
Provides moisture, acidity, and the main flavour of the dish.

The step that matters

Let the mixture cool before adding the eggs. Egg whites hold air only when the base is cool enough not to deflate them or partly cook the yolks. Adding them to a hot mixture can cause loss of lift and a dense, uneven rise.

Swap the mustard

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, butter, cheese, bread, egg, pepper. 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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