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Little Crab Souffles

A chilled crab soufflé topped with whipped cream and garnished with parsley and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and chervil match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 824 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Little Crab Souffles

Ingredients

Directions

Make the crab mixture

  1. Whip the liquid aspic until white and creamy.

  2. Fold in the whipped cream, tarragon vinegar, coralline pepper, and coarse sea salt.

  3. Stir in the minced crab, tarragon, and chervil.

Fill and chill

  1. Prepare souffle cases with paper bands standing 1½ inches above the cases.

  2. Fill the cases with the crab mixture.

  3. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the paper bands and dust with parsley and coralline pepper.

  2. Top each souffle with a small rose of whipped cream.

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. Tarragon + cherviltop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together824 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Tarragon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Chervil + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together774 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  4. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  5. Tarragon + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Liquid aspic
Whipped until white and creamy, it gives the soufflé its light, set body.
Heavy cream
Whipped and folded in, it adds air and richness to the mixture.
Crab
Provides the main flavour and the substance of the soufflé.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the rich cream and crab.

The step that matters

Whipping the aspic until white and creamy. Whipping traps air into the aspic, which gives the soufflé its light texture. Under-whipped aspic stays dense, and the mixture will not rise or hold its shape well once folded and chilled.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, crab, chervil):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Fennelfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, tarragon, vinegar, pepper, crab, chervil. 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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