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Souffle De Choufleur

A baked cauliflower soufflé with a creamy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and milk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Souffle De Choufleur

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the cauliflower

  1. Clean the cauliflower and soak it in cold water and vinegar for 15 minutes.

  2. Drain the cauliflower and boil it in salted water for 15 minutes.

  3. Drain thoroughly and press through a fine sieve.

Make the soufflé base

  1. Butter the inner walls of a mold thickly.

  2. Dredge flour over the mold, coating all sides and the bottom evenly.

  3. In a small saucepan, melt 2 oz of butter with 2 oz of flour over low heat without browning.

  4. Gradually add 1 cup of boiling milk.

  5. Season with salt.

  6. Boil for 5 minutes while stirring constantly.

  7. Stir in the cauliflower puree.

  8. Beat the egg yolks and mix them into the mixture.

  9. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites.

Bake and serve

  1. Pour the mixture into the mold.

  2. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 30 minutes.

  3. Cover with buttered paper if it browns too quickly.

  4. Blend some of the cauliflower cooking water with a white sauce.

  5. Stir in ½ cup of whipped cream just before serving.

  6. Turn out the soufflé onto a hot dish.

  7. Serve the sauce in a sauceboat.

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 + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Cauliflower + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together569 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cauliflower + vinegartop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together888 recipes

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

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

Cauliflower
Forms the body and flavor of the soufflé once pureed and mixed into the base.
Egg whites
Whipped air structure that lifts the soufflé as it bakes and sets.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help it set into a tender, custard-like crumb.
Butter
Enriches the base and, with flour, forms the roux that thickens the milk.
Flour
Forms a roux with butter that thickens the milk into a stable base.
Milk
Liquid that, thickened with the roux, makes the soufflé base smooth and creamy.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped and folded in gently; overmixing deflates the foam, leaving a dense soufflé that will not rise well in the oven.

Swap the cauliflower

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, butter, flour, milk, egg, cream):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cauliflowerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter, flour, milk, egg, cream. 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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