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Celery Souffle

A baked dish of sautéed celery, eggs, milk, cheese, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Celery 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 celery

  1. Cook the celery, cut small, in as little milk as possible until tender.

  2. Sieve the cooked celery and let it cool.

Make the mixture

  1. Beat the butter to a cream and add the beaten yolks of the eggs.

  2. Mix in the cooled celery and cheese, then season with celery salt.

  3. Stir in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Fill small cases with the mixture until three-quarters full, or use one large dish.

  2. Sprinkle some cheese over the top.

  3. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for 7 minutes.

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

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + milktop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

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 and whites, beaten and folded in, lift the mixture to make it rise and set light.
White celery
Provides the main flavour and moisture of the soufflé once cooked and sieved.
Cheese
Adds savoury richness and flavour to the mixture and a browned topping.
Butter
Creamed with the yolks, it adds fat for a rich, smooth texture.
Milk
Used to cook the celery, keeping it moist and tender with little liquid.

The step that matters

Folding in the beaten egg whites. Whites hold air that makes the soufflé rise. Stirring them in too vigorously knocks out that air, so the mixture should be gently folded and baked straight away.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, milk, cheese, 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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