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Prawn Souffle

A chilled layered dish of prawns, aspic, mayonnaise, and bread crumbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,399 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Prawn Souffle

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the prawns

  1. Prepare the prawns by removing the shells and cleaning them.

  2. Marinate the minced prawns with oil, vinegar, pepper, and coarse sea salt.

Layer the soufflé

  1. Layer whipped aspic at the bottom of a souffle dish.

  2. Add a thin layer of mayonnaise over the aspic.

  3. Add a layer of the marinated prawns, seasoning each layer with white pepper and a little salt and tarragon vinegar.

  4. Repeat the layering until the dish is filled, finishing with whipped aspic on top.

Chill and serve

  1. Refrigerate until ready to serve.

  2. Before serving, remove the paper, place the souffle lining on a serving dish, and sprinkle with fried bread crumbs.

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. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Vinegar + tarragontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

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

  5. Tarragon + breadtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together178 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Prawns
Provide the main body and savoury flavour of the soufflé.
Whipped aspic
Sets into a light, firm structure that holds the layers together.
Mayonnaise
Adds richness and fat, giving the layers a smooth, creamy texture.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds acidity and aromatic flavour that brightens the rich prawn layers.

The step that matters

Marinate the minced prawns. Acid and salt in the marinade firm and season the prawn flesh before layering. Too little seasoning leaves the dish bland, and too much acid can toughen the texture.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, pepper, bread):

  1. Tarragonthe original
  2. Parsleyfits about as well
  3. Marjoramfits about as well
  4. Garlicfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, pepper, bread. 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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