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Eggs, Souffle

A light, baked egg soufflé flavored with butter, mushrooms, shallots, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Eggs, Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine egg yolks and butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Fry sliced shallots in a separate pan until golden.

  3. Add shallots, mushrooms, parsley, pepper, and salt to the saucepan with yolks and butter.

  4. Place the saucepan in a larger pan of boiling water and stir until the mixture thickens.

  5. Remove from heat, whisk the mixture for 1–2 minutes, and let it cool.

Assemble and bake

  1. Whisk egg whites until firm.

  2. Fold the beaten egg whites into the cooled yolk mixture.

  3. Pour the mixture into a soufflé dish or small ramekins.

  4. Place the dish in a covered saucepan and add boiling water until it nearly reaches the edges.

  5. Once the water simmers, remove from heat and let the soufflé sit for about 10 minutes before removing the cover.

Serve

  1. 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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Mushroom + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,982 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  5. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 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
Whipped whites trap air for lift; yolks thicken and enrich the base.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that carries flavour and softens the texture.
Shallot
Adds mild savoury sweetness when fried until golden.
Dried mushrooms
Adds earthy, savoury depth to the custard.

The step that matters

Fold the whites in gently. Fold the beaten whites in gently, in portions, rather than stirring. Their trapped air is what makes the soufflé rise, and vigorous mixing knocks it out, leaving a dense result.

Swap the shallot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, mushroom, parsley, pepper):

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Capsicumfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Chivefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, mushroom, parsley, pepper. 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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