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Spinach Souffle

Spinach soufflé is a baked dish of cooked spinach folded into a creamy sauce with eggs and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter, add the flour, and gradually whisk in the scalded milk with salt and pepper to make a cream sauce.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolks.

  3. Add the cooked spinach and gently fold in the stiffly beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered serving dish and place it in a pan of hot water.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes and serve immediately.

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. Spinach + flourtop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,564 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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
Egg whites trapped by folding give the soufflé its lift, and yolks enrich the set custard.
Flour
Thickens the butter and milk into a cream sauce that holds the spinach and eggs.
Milk
Forms the liquid base of the cream sauce, adding moisture and a soft texture.
Cooked spinach
Supplies the main flavour and moisture; it must be well drained so the soufflé does not turn watery.
Butter
Enriches the sauce and adds richness and flavour to the base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Stiffly beaten whites hold air that makes the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps that air in; stirring hard deflates the mixture and leaves it dense.

Swap the spinach

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

  1. Capsicumfits about as well
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusfits about as well
  4. Spinachthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, flour, 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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