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Lobster Soufflé

A baked lobster soufflé flavored with mustard, tarragon, anchovy essence, and finished with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 901 recipes. Both carry methyleugenol, which smells clove, spice. The science ↓

Lobster Soufflé

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F (200°C).

  2. In a bowl, mix mustard, coralline pepper, salt, tarragon vinegar, chopped tarragon, essence of anchovy, and carmine.

  3. Add minced lobster meat and creamy part of the head, then fold in whipped cream.

Make the soufflé

  1. Whip egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff, then gently fold into the lobster mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered soufflé dish lined with buttered paper extending 3 inches above the rim.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until puffed and golden.

  2. Remove the paper, dust with lobster coral or coralline pepper, and serve hot.

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. Mustard + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together901 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  2. Anchovy + lobstertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together470 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Whipped egg whites trap air, giving the soufflé its light, risen structure.
Lobster meat
Provides the main flavour and body of the soufflé mixture.
Whipped cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft and tender.
Essence of anchovy
Adds a salty, savoury depth that rounds out the seafood flavour.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air bubbles from the whipped whites intact. Stirring vigorously deflates the mixture, so the soufflé will rise poorly.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (mustard, pepper, vinegar, anchovy, meat, lobster, cream):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Tarragonthe original
  3. Celeryfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against mustard, pepper, vinegar, anchovy, meat, lobster, cream. 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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