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Potato Souffle

A baked potato soufflé made with mashed potatoes, eggs, butter, cheese, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and gruyere cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Potato 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.

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender.

  2. Mash the potatoes with the butter, pepper, salt, and grated cheeses.

  3. Add the yolks of the eggs and mix well.

Fold and bake

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff.

  2. Gently fold the stiff egg whites into the potato mixture.

  3. Transfer the mixture to a pie dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the top is nicely browned.

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. Parmesan cheese + gruyere cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  4. Butter + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Potato + gruyere cheesetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks enrich the base, while whipped whites lighten it and help it rise and set.
Potatoes
Mashed starch forms the body of the soufflé and holds moisture in the mixture.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory flavor and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Gruyere cheese
Melts into the mash for rich flavor and a creamy texture.
Sweet butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother, softer texture.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites are whipped to hold air bubbles. Folding gently keeps those bubbles intact, so the soufflé rises and stays light instead of collapsing or turning dense.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Potatothe original
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, parmesan cheese, gruyere cheese. 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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