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Cold Salmon Souffle

A chilled salmon mousse with egg yolks, whites, mustard, and fish stock, folded with whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Cold Salmon Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the salmon

  1. Cook the salmon in a mixture of wine and lemon juice until done.

  2. Pound the cooked salmon until smooth.

Make the mixture

  1. Mix in the yolks of the hard-boiled eggs and the chopped whites.

  2. Season with mustard, salt, cayenne, and anchovy or shrimp essence.

  3. Moisten with fish stock thickened with gelatine, then sieve the mixture.

  4. Fold in the whipped cream or anchovy cream.

Set and serve

  1. Prepare a paper or china case as directed, then chill the souffle until firm.

  2. Remove the case and serve plain or garnish as desired.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

  3. Anchovy + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Salmon + anchovytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together535 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Salmon + fishtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,078 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Salmon
Forms the main body of the soufflé and gives its flavour and pale pink colour.
Hard-boiled eggs
Yolks enrich and thicken the mixture while chopped whites add body and texture.
Gelatine
Sets the mousse-like mixture so it holds its shape when chilled.
Whipped cream
Adds air and richness, giving the soufflé a light, airy texture.
Fish stock
Moistens the purée and carries savory flavour while the gelatine sets it.

The step that matters

Sieving after moistening with gelatine-thickened stock. Sieving makes the purée smooth and removes fibres and lumps. Gelatine begins to set as it cools, so the mixture should be sieved promptly, before it stiffens, and folded cream should go in while it is still loose enough to blend evenly.

Swap the mustard

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (salmon, wine, lemon, egg, pepper, anchovy, fish):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against salmon, wine, lemon, egg, pepper, anchovy, fish. 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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