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Potato Souffle

A baked potato souffle made with mealy potatoes, butter, cream, eggs, salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Cook the potatoes, then drain and dry them carefully.

  2. Rub the potatoes through a fine wire sieve into a basin.

Make the mixture

  1. Add salt, pepper, and a grating of nutmeg to season.

  2. Melt the butter and stir in the egg yolks one by one, followed by the cream.

  3. Gently fold in the whisked egg whites until combined.

Bake

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered baking dish or small buttered souffle cases.

  2. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for about 20 minutes, or 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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Mealy potatoes
Form the bulk of the souffle and give a light, fluffy base.
Eggs
Whisked whites trap air for lift, and yolks help the mixture set.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, tender crumb.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the souffle soft.

The step that matters

Fold in the egg whites gently. Whisked egg whites hold air that lifts the souffle as it bakes. Stirring vigorously or overmixing knocks out that air, so the souffle rises less and turns dense.

Swap the potato

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, egg, pepper, nutmeg. 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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