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Lobster Souffle

A savory souffle made with whiting, lobster, cream, eggs, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Whiting and lobster work together. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 73 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Lobster Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Pound the flesh of the whitings and the lobster coral together in a mortar, then rub through a wire sieve.

  2. Melt the butter in a saucepan.

  3. Mix in the flour and add the milk.

  4. Stir and cook well.

Make the soufflé

  1. Finely chop the lobster and pound it in a mortar with the panada, whiting, eggs, lemon juice, pepper, salt, and a little cayenne.

  2. Rub through a fine sieve.

  3. Beat the cream until stiff, then gently fold it into the mixture and pour into a prepared souffle dish.

  4. Cover with buttered paper and steam for 30 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve with a supreme sauce poured over the top, and decorate the souffle with lobster coral and truffle.

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. Whiting + lobstertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together73 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Lobster + creamtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Whiting + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together135 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Set and bind the mixture, giving the soufflé its structure as they cook.
Cream
Beaten until stiff, it lightens the mixture and gives the soufflé a tender, airy texture.
Butter
Enriches the flour base and adds richness and flavour to the panada.
Flour
Thickens the milk and butter into a panada that gives the mixture body.
Whitings
Provide the main fish flavour and body of the soufflé.
Hen lobster
Supplies the main lobster flavour, with its coral adding colour and richness.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped cream. Stiffly beaten cream holds air that lightens the soufflé. Folding gently keeps that air in, so the mixture rises instead of deflating.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Raisinfits about as well
  4. Coconutfits less well

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