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Potatoes Souffles

A baked dish of mashed potatoes folded with egg whites and yolks, served in the skins.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,456 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Potatoes Souffles

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Clean the potatoes and cut a piece from one end to make them stand up.

  2. Bake the potatoes at 400°F (200°C) until done.

  3. Cut off the opposite end and remove the inside, pressing it through a potato masher.

Make the filling

  1. Season the mashed potatoes with salt and butter.

  2. Separate the eggs, placing the whites in a bowl and the yolks with the potatoes.

  3. Mix the yolks thoroughly with the potato mixture.

  4. Whip the egg whites to stiff peaks and gently fold them into the potato mixture with a palette knife.

Bake and serve

  1. Stuff the potato skins with the mixture and arrange them upright on a baking pan.

  2. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 15 minutes.

  3. Serve on a folded napkin.

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Potato + eggtop 29% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,978 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Potatoes
Form the base of the soufflé, with the flesh mashed to hold the filling inside the skins.
Eggs
Whipped whites lighten the mixture and help it puff, while yolks enrich it and add richness.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, softening the mashed potato for a smoother texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only while whipped to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that air in the mixture, so the filling rises and stays light instead of collapsing and turning dense.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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.

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