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Dessert

Lemon Souffl^

A light, citrusy dessert made with milk, lemon zest, egg yolks, and whipped egg whites, finished with pistachios and currants.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Pistachio and nuts match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 425 recipes. Both carry alpha-pinene, which smells pine, turpentine. The science ↓

Lemon Souffl^

Ingredients

Directions

Make the custard

  1. In a saucepan, combine milk, lemon rind, and isinglass; boil for 10 minutes.

  2. Beat the egg yolks.

  3. When the milk is nearly cool, mix in the yolks and heat to thicken.

  4. Remove from heat.

Assemble and set

  1. Stir in whipped egg whites, powdered sugar, lemon juice, chopped pistachios, and currants.

  2. Butter a mold and sprinkle with some chopped pistachios.

  3. Pour the mixture into the mold.

  4. Place in ice or a very cold area to set, then turn out of the mold and serve.

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. Pistachio + nutstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together425 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  2. Lemon + pistachiotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together431 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Milk + lemontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + buttertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Isinglass
Gelatin-like setting agent that firms the mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Egg whites
Whipped to trap air, giving the soufflé its light, airy structure.
Egg yolks
Thicken the custard base when heated and add richness and body.
Powdered sugar
Sweetens the mixture and dissolves easily into the cooled custard.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness.

The step that matters

Let the milk nearly cool before adding the yolks. Adding hot-to-very-hot liquid to raw yolks can scramble them; cooling the base first lets the yolks thicken gently and smoothly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, lemon, egg, sugar, pistachio, nuts, butter):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, lemon, egg, sugar, pistachio, nuts, 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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