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Dessert

Souffle D'huitres

A French oyster soufflé made with oysters, raw fish, butter, flour, water, eggs, lemon juice, anchovy paste, cream, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Oyster and anchovy work together. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 603 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Souffle D'huitres

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderate oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Make the base

  1. Make a panada by melting the butter, then whisking in the flour and water until smooth.

  2. Pound the fish and mix it into the panada, then strain the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Stir in the cream, seasoning, and egg yolks.

Bake

  1. Whip the egg whites until stiff peaks form, then gently fold them into the mixture.

  2. Add the oysters and pour the mixture into a buttered soufflé dish.

  3. Surround the dish with a band of buttered paper and bake at 350°F (175°C) for 35 minutes.

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. Oyster + anchovytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together603 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

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

  3. Oyster + fishtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together496 recipes

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

  4. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

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 for lift, and yolks enrich the custard base for a light set.
Butter
Enriches the panada and adds fat for a tender, rich texture.
Flour
Thickens the panada so the base holds the whipped egg whites.
Oysters
Provide the main briny flavour that runs through the soufflé.
Raw fish
Adds body and savoury flavour to the base once pounded and strained.

The step that matters

Folding in the egg whites. Whites hold air only when whipped to stiff peaks. Folding gently keeps that trapped air, which gives the soufflé its rise. Stirring or overmixing deflates the batter and produces a flat, dense result.

“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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