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Potato Souffle

A baked potato dish folded with beaten egg whites and grated cheeses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parmesan cheese and gruyere cheese match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 152 recipes. Both carry ethyl 2-methylbutyrate, which smells fruity, apple. The science ↓

Potato Souffle

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.

Make the potato base

  1. Boil the potatoes until tender, then mash them with the butter, pepper, salt, and grated cheeses.

  2. Add the yolks of the eggs and mix well.

Fold and bake

  1. Whisk the egg whites until stiff, then gently fold them into the potato mixture.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pie dish and bake at 350°F (175°C) until the top is nicely browned.

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. Parmesan cheese + gruyere cheesetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together152 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

  2. Butter + parmesan cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,163 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Butter + gruyere cheesetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together323 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Potato + gruyere cheesetop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyl 2-methylbutyrate (apple, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Mealy potatoes
Their starch gives the base a light, fluffy body when mashed.
Eggs
Yolks enrich and bind the base, while whipped whites lift the mixture as it bakes.
Sweet butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and softening the mashed potato.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty flavor and helps the top brown as it bakes.
Gruyere cheese
Melts into the base for a nutty flavor and helps the top brown.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites whipped until stiff trap air that makes the souffle rise. Stirring them in vigorously knocks that air out, so the fold should be gentle and stop once no white streaks remain.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, butter, pepper, parmesan cheese, gruyere cheese):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, butter, pepper, parmesan cheese, gruyere cheese. 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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