Name: Cheese Souffle
Ingredients: 1 pint milk; 3 heaping tablespoons flour; 3 egg yolks; ¼ teaspoon salt; ½ teaspoon dry mustard; a dash of red pepper; a few drops onion juice; 1 cup grated cheese; 3 egg whites

Why it works: Mustard and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,259 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cheese 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.

Make the base

Mix the flour with a part of the milk to form a smooth paste.
Add the remaining milk and stir over heat until thickened.
Set aside to cool.

Combine and bake

In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, salt, dry mustard, red pepper, onion juice, and grated cheese.
Stir this mixture into the cooled batter.
Fold in the beaten egg whites.
Bake in individual cases at 400°F (200°C) for 20 minutes and 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.

Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,259 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Milk + cheesetop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,426 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Mustard + cheesetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,805 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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, lifting the soufflé as it rises; yolks add richness and set the custard.
Flour: Thickens the milk into a smooth white sauce that holds the soufflé's structure.
Milk: Forms the liquid base of the sauce, giving the soufflé its moisture and body.
Grated cheese: Adds rich flavour and fat, and helps the mixture brown on top.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites. Folding gently keeps the air in the whites. Stirring or deflating them makes the soufflé rise less and turn dense.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, flour, egg, mustard, pepper, cheese):

Chivefits better
Capsicumfits better
Asparagusfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, flour, egg, mustard, pepper, 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.