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Potato Souffle

A baked potato soufflé made with boiled potatoes, butter, cream, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Potato Souffle

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a hot oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the potato base

  1. Cook the potatoes, then drain and dry them carefully.

  2. Rub the potatoes through a fine wire sieve into a basin.

  3. Add salt, pepper, and a grating of nutmeg to season.

Make the soufflé mixture

  1. Melt the butter and stir in the egg yolks and cream one by one.

  2. Gently fold in the whisked egg whites until combined.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish or small buttered souffle cases.

  2. Bake in a hot oven at 400°F (200°C) for about 20 minutes, or until set.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Potato + nutmegtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,052 recipes

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

  4. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

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

  5. Cream + nutmegtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,920 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Mealy potatoes
Provide the starchy, fluffy base that gives the soufflé its body.
Eggs
Yolks enrich the base and whites trap air, lifting and setting the soufflé as it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, tender mouthfeel to the base.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, keeping the mixture soft and smooth.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air bubbles that make the soufflé rise. Folding gently keeps those bubbles intact, while vigorous stirring would deflate the mixture and leave it dense.

Swap the potato

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

  1. Spinachfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Leekfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, egg, pepper, nutmeg. 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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