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Cheese Souffle with Tomato

A baked cheese souffle flavored with tomato, paprika, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cheese are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,962 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Cheese Souffle with Tomato

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

  1. Melt the fat in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour, salt, and paprika, stirring until well blended.

  3. Pour in the strained tomato and cook for 2 minutes, stirring briskly.

Finish and bake

  1. Remove from heat and add the grated cheese and egg yolks, mixing until thick and lemon-colored.

  2. Gently fold in the beaten egg whites until just combined.

  3. Pour the mixture into well-greased individual dishes.

  4. Bake at 400°F (200°C) until well risen and lightly 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. Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  2. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Tomato + cheesetop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,896 recipes

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

  4. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Egg whites
Beaten into foam, they trap air that lifts the souffle as it bakes.
Egg yolks
Enrich the base and help set the structure as the souffle cooks.
Flour
Thickens the melted fat and tomato into a stable base that holds the rise.
Cheese
Adds rich flavor and fat, and helps the souffle brown as it bakes.
Strained tomato
Provides moisture and acidity that flavors the base.

The step that matters

Fold in the beaten egg whites gently. Egg whites hold the air that makes a souffle rise. Vigorous stirring deflates the foam, so the souffle bakes flat and dense instead of light and puffed.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Asparagusfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, butter, cheese, egg. 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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