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Mushroom Souffle

A light, airy dish made with eggs, wheatmeal, butter, and mushrooms, folded into a soufflé.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Mushroom 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.

Prepare the mushrooms

  1. Peel, wash, and chop the mushrooms into small pieces.

  2. Stew the mushrooms in ½ cup of water for 10 minutes.

  3. Drain the liquid, which should be about ½ cup.

Make the base

  1. Melt the butter in a small saucepan, then stir in the wheatmeal until well mixed.

  2. Add the mushroom liquid and stir until the mixture is smooth and thick.

  3. Stir in the mushrooms and let the mixture cool slightly in a basin.

  4. Separate the yolks from the whites of the eggs.

  5. Stir each yolk into the mushroom mixture, seasoning to taste.

Bake and serve

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

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered pie dish or souffle tin and bake at 400°F (200°C) for 15 minutes.

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

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

  2. Mushroom + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  5. Egg + mushroomtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,987 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
Whites trap air when whipped, lifting the soufflé as it bakes, while yolks enrich the structure.
Wheatmeal
Cooked with butter and liquid, it thickens the base so it can hold the whipped whites.
Butter
Fat that enriches the flavour and helps form the smooth, thick roux base.
Mushrooms
Provide the main earthy flavour and moisture to the base.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites must be whipped to stiff peaks and folded gently, because stirring vigorously deflates the trapped air that makes the soufflé rise.

“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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