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Shrimp Souffle

A baked shrimp and fish souffle made with butter, flour, fish stock, eggs, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and shrimp are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,931 recipes. Both carry 2,6-nonadienal, which smells cucumber, green. The science ↓

Shrimp Souffle

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.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a pan.

  2. Add the flour and stir in the fish stock or milk, cooking well and seasoning to taste.

  3. Remove the flesh from the whiting and rub it through a wire sieve with the shrimps.

  4. Add the fish and shrimp mixture to the pan along with the egg yolks.

Bake and serve

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff and gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered souffle dish and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 20 to 30 minutes.

  3. 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. Butter + shrimptop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,931 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,6-nonadienal (cucumber, green).

  2. Butter + fishtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Fish + shrimptop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together252 recipes

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

  5. Whiting + fishtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together317 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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 trap air, lifting the soufflé as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the butter and stock into a smooth base that holds the soufflé's structure.
Butter
Enriches the base and adds flavour while helping form the roux with the flour.
Whiting
Adds the fish body and delicate flavour to the base, giving it substance.
Shrimps
Provide the main shellfish flavour and sweetness in the mixture.

The step that matters

Whip the egg whites until stiff and fold gently. Whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks; overmixing when folding knocks out that air, so the soufflé will fall and turn dense instead of rising.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, flour, whiting, fish, pepper, shrimp):

  1. Capersfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Nutmegfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour, whiting, fish, pepper, shrimp. 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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